Description
Metals pollution is an emerging worldwide environmental issue. Due to their potential toxic effects on human health and agriculture even at low concentrations it needs to be addressed aggressively. Environmental contamination has been increased because of industrial, agricultural and household activities. Lead (Pb) is a metal that has been used in many consumer products including gasoline, paint, pottery, tin cans, and batteries. Lead contaminated soils can be restored by different physical, chemical and biological approaches. Among the biological approaches, phytoremediation is one of the best ways to remediated metals contaminated soils. However, due to toxic effects of metals, plants grow slowly and produce less biomass which is prerequisite for effective phytoremediation. Plant growth under metals stress can be improved by the use metal tolerant plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB). In metal stress, Plant growth promoting bacteria help the plants to gain sufficient biomass by different plant growth promoting activities which ultimately may enhance the Phytoremediation capabilities in contaminated soil. To examine this, Pb tolerant bacteria will be isolated from previously lead contaminated soils. These bacterial isolates will be screened and characterized for plant growth promotion and their metal tolerance capabilities under controlled conditions. Seeds of hyper accumulator plants will be inoculated with these bacteria and plant growth promotion will be monitored in growth pouches under gnotobiotic conditions under normal condition. On the basis of characterization (ACC deaminase, IAA and CO2 production) in lab studies and growth promotion activities under gnotobiotic conditions, the most efficient bacteria will be selected for further studies. Then inoculated seeds of hyper accumulator plants with selected bacterial isolates will be sown in lead (Pb) contaminated soils to observe the phytoremediation process in association with lead (Pb) tolerant bacteria having plant growth promotion activities. Data regarding growth, yield, physiological and antioxidants will be recorded and lead content will be determined from plant samples after harvesting the crop. Data will be analyzed by standard statistical procedures.| Period | 08 Oct 2016 |
|---|---|
| Examinee | Muhammad Saleem |
| Examination held at |
|