ABSTRACT

A major environmental problem facing most countries of the world today, regarding agricultural productivity and food availability, is drought. The aim of the study was to isolate and characterize drought tolerant bacteria from aloe vera rhizosphere soil. Soil samples were collected from National Root Crop Research Institute, Umudike. The soil samples were collected from the rhizosphere of aloe vera plant. A total of 12 bacterial isolates were isolated from rhizosphere of aloe vera soil for drought tolerance activity which were identified by different morphological and biochemical characterization. The total bacteria heterotrophic count which ranged from 1.28 x106 Cfu/g to 1.72 x 106 Cfu/g.  The percentage occurrence of the isolates. Bacillus sp 41.7% had the highest percentage occurrence followed by Streptomyces sp 33% while Paenibacillus sp 25% showed the least percentage occurrence. The drought tolerance potential of the isolate determined using an OD reading at 600nm among the different osmotic stresses, all the bacteria attain maximum growth at 0.44MPa stress. Changes in climatic conditions can bring about undesirable environmental conditions, including drought which decrease crop productivity hence the importance of drought resisted microorganisms that are beneficial to plants.