TY - EJOU AU - Zafar-ul-Hye, Muhammad AU - Bhutta, Tariq Shahzad AU - Shaaban, Muhammad AU - Hussain, Shahid AU - Qayyum, Muhammad Farooq AU - Aslam, Umar TI - Influence of Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacterial Inoculation on Wheat Productivity Under Soil Salinity Stress T2 - Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany PY - 2019 VL - 88 IS - 2 SN - 1851-5657 AB - Soil salinity affects the growth and yield of crops. The stress of soil salinity on plants can be mitigated by inoculation of plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPR). The influence of PGPR inoculation on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) crop productivity under salinity stress has not been properly addressed so far. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the effects of various PGPR strains (W14, W10 and 6K; alone and combined) at several growth attributes of wheat plant under different soil salinity gradients (3, 6 and 9 dS m-1). The growth attributes of wheat (height, roots, shoots, spikes, grains quality, biological and economical yield, nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in grains) were highly affected by salinity and decreased with increasing salinity level. The PGPR inoculation substantially promoted growth attributes of wheat and prominent results were observed in W14 × W10 × 6K treatment at all salinity levels. The results suggest that inoculation of PGPR is a potential strategy to mitigate salinity stress for improving wheat growth and yield. KW - PGPR; abiotic stress; soil salinity; ethylene; wheat DO - 10.32604/phyton.2019.06570