Antifungal properties exhibited by bacteria isolated from agriculturally cultivable soils and their antagonistic nature towards fungal phytopathogen suppression

Soil samples collected from rhizosphere soil, cultivable field soil, Rhizoplane soil of paddy plants and were used to isolate bacteria by culture methods of which thirty two bacterial cultures were identified with diverse colony characteristics on nutrient agar medium and biochemical characterization. Sixteen bacterial isolates were selected for screening fungal antagonism on PDA and were further tested against Fusarium and Rhizoctonia species. In this study, two Pseudomonas strains (RB15, RB30) and Bacillus cereus (RB13) were cyanogen producers. Both strains of Pseudomonas RB15 and RB30 and Bacillus cereus (RB13) were also siderophore producers. Only three isolates showed chitinolytic activity; Serratia marcesens (RB24), Bacillus cereus (RB13) and Enterobacter cancerogenus (RB17).