Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria on fruit yield and chemical contents in tomato plants infected cucumber mosaic virus

International Conference on Food Microbiology

August 08-10, 2016 Birmingham, UK

Narjes Haji Dashti, Magdy S Montasser, Nedaa Y A Ali and Vineetha M Cherian

Kuwait University, Kuwait

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

A study of the effect of two plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) strains, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Stenotrophomonas rhizophila, on fruit yields and chemical contents on cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) infected tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruits was performed. Two CMV strains CMV-KU1 which is a locally isolated CMV associated with a benign viral satellite RNA and CMV-16 a satellite free virus that causes severe stunting, manifested by vegetative and fruit yield loss in tomato were used. The study was conducted in parallel on two different cultivar varieties of tomato, namely Supermarmande and UC82B and results obtained for each were compared. The results indicated that the presence of the PGPR almost doubled the average yield per plant, even of those plants infected by the CMV viruses, compared to the healthy control treatments. The chemical analysis of tomato fruits revealed that the presence of the PGPRs increased the total protein, lycopene, alkalinity and phenol content of the tomato fruits compared to the healthy controls. However, PGPRs had no influence on reduced sugars, total soluble solids or the titerable acid content but reduced the amount of ascorbic acid in tomato fruits of infected plants compared to healthy controls.

Biography :

Narjes Haji Dashti is currently working as an Associate Professor of Microbiology at the Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Kuwait University. She has obtained her Master’s degree in the same field at Oregon State University, USA followed by a PhD at McGill University, Canada. Her research interests include plant pathology, virology, soil microbiology, microbial bioremediation and hydrocarbon degradation. Her primary research focuses include; the beneficial applications of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) on both leguminous and non-leguminous crops and the hydrocarbon degrading potential of hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria as a mean of bioremediation of oil spill contaminated sites. She has over 21 publications and has presented many of her finding in both national and international conferences. She is an active Member of international association of the agricultural economists, USA and the Genetics Society, UK.

Email: narjes.dashti@ku.edu.kw