Figure 4.

Growth-promoting activity of the antagonistic bacterial strains in watermelon plants. Watermelon plants were treated using root drenching with either sterile Luria-Bertani medium (CK) or 15 mL suspensions of each of the antagonistic bacterial strains. Photos and growth parameters were obtained at 30 d after treatment. (A) Growth performance of the watermelon plants with and without treatment with the antagonistic bacterial strains. (B,C) Height of aboveground plant and root length with and without treatment with the antagonistic bacterial strains. (D,E) Fresh weight of aboveground plants and roots with and without treatment with the antagonistic bacterial strains. (F,G) Dry weight of aboveground plants and roots with and without treatment with the antagonistic bacterial strains. The results in (A) are from an experiment that was performed independently three times with similar results. The data presented in (B–G) are the means ± standard deviation from three independent experiments. Different lowercase letters indicate a significant difference at p-value < 0.05 level according to the one-way analysis of variance test.