Growth Promotion of Burkholderia ambifaria Associated to Nitrogen Fertilization in the Initial Development of Corn

Growth promoting bacteria are a potential option for sustainable cultivation with lower costs, among them Burkholderia ambifaria, whose importance is mainly due to the endophytic root colonization capacity. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of the inoculation of growth promoting bacteria in corn plants, in vitro and in greenhouse, with different levels of nitrogen fertilization. The PIONEER® 30F53 YH maize genotype was inoculated with Burkholderia ambifaria, with 106 CFU per seed, in 12-liter polyethylene pots, filled with commercial substrate, prepared with the different nitrogen contents (N), resulting in treatments with different doses of fertilization, associated or not with bacterial inoculation. After 30 and 45 days, it was evaluated: growth promotion, epiphytic and endophytic population and nitrogen accumulation. In the in vitro experiment, inoculated seeds were cultured in test tubes containing culture medium with absence and presence of nitrogen, evaluated after 7 days. The data were submitted to analysis of variance and the means were compared by the Tukey test at 5% of probability and regression. Increased nitrogen doses in inoculated plants resulted in better morphological parameters at 45 days. In vitro bacterial inoculation, in vitro, influenced the accumulation of fresh weight of shoot, root growth and development of root hair. The endophytic potential and the accumulation of nitrogen were higher in the absence of nitrogen, but lower than the absence of bacteria and the presence of nitrogen.