Gibberellin production and plant growth enhancement by newly isolated strain of Scolecobasidium tshawytschae

We isolated nine endophytic fungi from the roots of salt-stressed soybean cultivar Daewonkong and screened them for growth-promoting secondary metabolites. Of all fungal isolates, P-4-3 induced maximum growth promotion of waito-c rice and soybean. Analysis of the culture filtrate of P-4-3 showed the presence of physiologically active gibberellins GA₁, GA₃, GA₄, and GA₇, along with physiologically inactive GA₁₅ and GA₂₄. The plant growth promotion and gibberellin-producing capacity of P-4-3 was much higher than wild-type Gibberella fujikuroi, which was taken as the control during the present study. The fungal isolate P-4-3 was identified as a new strain of Scolecobasidium tshawytschae through the morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analysis of 18S rDNA sequence. Gibberellins production and plant growth promoting ability of genus Scolecobasidium was reported for the first time in the present study.