Transplanting drought-Protective Bacteria to enhance clove basil's (Ocimum gratissimum) drought tolerance.

ABSTRACT: Modern horticulture relies heavily on chemical inputs to ensure plant growth and health. While the benefits of plant-associated microbes in promoting drought tolerance are well established, their consistent performance under field-like conditions remains limited. We hypothesize that a minimal, drought-adapted bacterial community-composed of strains isolated from resilient plants-can not only outperform single-strain inoculants, but also confer drought tolerance across plant cultivars when transplanted into a sensitive host such as clove basil. To test this hypothesis, three drought-tolerant bacterial strains from the Pseudomonas fluorescence genus were selected and their effects on clove basil (Ocimum gratissimum) plants were evaluated under severe drought stress conditions. The protective

SUBMITTER: Fatemi H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12267459 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature