DEVELOPMENT OF EFFICIENT TECHNIQUES SUITABLE FOR GROWTH AND SURVIVAL OF PLANT MICROBIOME

Abstract

Microbes are responsible for the stability of terrestrial ecological systems. So, their cultivation, characterization, and preservation of these microbes are fundamental cornerstones to improve the health, industry, and environmental sustainability. The present study introduces clay as available, inexpensive and natural material for long-term microbial preservation of either pure isolates or consortia of microorganisms. The experimental layouts and obtained results could be summarized in the following: Part I: Clay beads as a low-tech and low-cost method for long-term microbial preservation Experiment I: Red clay beads as microbial preservative agent This experiment was designed to tested three different microbes Bacillus circulans, Klebsiella oxytoca and yeast isolate for long-term preservation under different storage temperatures; ambient, 4℃ and -20℃ using the red clay beads. Results are briefly presented in the following: 1. Clay beads successfully preserved all the tested microbes up to 11 months with very little reductions in their numbers. 2. ANOVA analysis for Bacillus circulans development revealed no significant influence was attributed to either storage temperature or cultivation medium on clay beads preservation capacity. 3. Klebsiella oxytoca nicely survived on clay beads kept for 42 weeks at the three-storage temperature, colony-forming units of log 7.39 ± 0.26 bead-1 enumerated at the beginning of storage insignificantly reduced to log 7.04 ± 0.95 and 6.95 ± 0.42 bead-1 when kept at -20 and 4℃ respectively. On the contrary, the bacterium numbers dramatically reduced to log 4.79 ± 0.64 bead-1 when preserved at ambient temperature. The clover teabag culture medium significantly overcame the synthetic CCM in supporting the preservation capacity of the clay beads.