Research Article
Functional Characterization of the Bacterial Inoculant Azospirillum lipoferum and Its Effect on the Growth and Yield of Maize Crop
Sulaf Hamid Taimooze
Middle East Research Journal Microbiology and Biotechnology; 314-319.
https://doi.org/10.36348/merjmb.2026.v06i05.001
Within a series of field experiments, an experiment was conducted in one of the fields of Al-Qadisiyah Governorate, Al-Shamiyah District, for the purpose of observing the effect of the Azospirillum lipoferum bacteria vaccine on the growth indicators in the yield of two varieties of yellow corn (Levantine corn and Gelatinous corn). The results of the statistical analysis showed that the bacterial inoculum treatment was significantly superior for all the studied traits that were used within the scope of the study, such as plant height, number of grains in the ear, leaf area index, number of leaves, and yield of one plant over the control treatment to which no bacterial inoculum was added. The plant height was recorded in Table (2). The plant height was recorded in Table (2) as (168.30), the number of leaves (7.01), the leaf index (1.92), the number of grains in the head (1236.22), the weight of 1000/g (25.03), and the yield of one plant/g (29.27), respectively. As for adding the bacterial inoculum, the results were plant height (185.11), the number of leaves (8.00), and the leaf area index (2.25) and the number of grains in the head (1344.15) and the weight of 1000/g (27.71) and the yield of one plant/g (35.89). When studying the effect of the interaction between the bacterial inoculum and the varieties in Table (4), the interaction between the bacterial inoculum and the gelatinous variety was significantly superior for all the studied traits except for the trait of the weight of 1000 grains, which did not constitute any significant difference between the two varieties, as it constituted (28.11) g for the Gelatinous corn, while Levantine corn corn (26.96) g.