• Attia Sarwar

• Imran Sajjid

• Rabaila Riaz

• Fazal ur Rehman

• Shahjahan Shabbir Ahmed

• Naeem Shahwani

• Muhammad Naseem

• Nazeer Ahmad

• Muhammad Mushtaq

Abstract

Rice is a staple food to almost one-third population of the world. The crop sustainability must therefore be considered to keep pace with the growing world population. Microorganims are one of the key factors affecting crop productivity and quality. Of particular interest is the plant rhiszosphere microbiome which has gained enormous attention in recent years due to their role both as pathogen and plant growth promoting agents. Accordingly, the present study is aimed at identification of bacteria isolated from soil samples collected from rice fields of district Jaffarabad, which belongs to the major rice growing area of Pakistan. Six strains B9, B15, B34, B40, B52 and B53 were identified as genus Bacillus whereas isolate B12 as genus Staphylococcus based on morphological and biochemical properties and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. Isolates B9, B40 and B53 showed 99% similarity to Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus anthracis and Bacillus endophyticus respectively. Conflicting results were observed for B15, B34 and B52 for sequence analysis based on BLAST and SeqMatch alignment. The isolate B12 showed 99% similarity to Staphylococcus aureus. Our findings indicate that instead of resorting rice bacterial populations through biochemical tests, the validation through 16S rRNA technique provides a more objective view.

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