Biohardening of Tissue Cultured Banana Plantlets of cv. Ney Poovan for the Management of Fusarium wilt of Banana with Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (VB7) Triggers Defence Gene Products and Growth Promotion

cv. Ney Poovan (AB) during primary and secondary hardening stages. Among the bacterial endophytes, B. amyloliquefaciens was found to significantly enhance plant height, leaf production, root numbers and root length compared to untreated control. Activity of defense enzymes were also enhanced and such increase in activity was observed to be to an extent of 93.67% in peroxidase, 92.39% polyphenol oxidase, 97.60% phenylalanine ammonia lyase and 26.23% in β-1, 3-glucanase defence enzymes in plants biohardened with B. amyloliquefaciens (VB7) over untreated control after inoculation of Foc. Tissue cultured plants of Ney Poovan biohardened with B. amyloliquefaciens (VB7), B. paraconglomeratum (YEB PT2) and S. maltophilia (YEB RH2) were completely free from wilt incidence symptoms upto planting stage when challenged with Foc inoculum under pot culture conditions. As among these three endophytes, B. amyloliquefaciens (VB7) also influenced favourable growth promotion, it can serve as a potential biocontrol agent for management of Fusarium wilt of banana.