Diversity of Endophytic Bacteria Associated with Curcuma heyneanaand Their Potency for Nitrogen Fixation

Endophytic bacteria shows a high biodiversity and some of thespecies plays important biological roles in agriculture. The aimof this study was to investigate the endophytic bacteria diversityassociated with temu giring (Curcuma heyneana) and to evaluateits nitrogen-fixation activity. Temu giring was collected from Bogor Botanic Garden. The isolation of endophytic bacteria was carriedout using two methods (spread plate and plant piece methods) andfour different medias (Nutrient Agar (NA), NA contained temugiring extract (NAH), Water Yeast Extract Agar (WYEA), and WYEA contained temu giring extract (WYEAH)). The identification ofselected isolates were conducted based on 16S rDNA. The ability ofselected isolates to fix the nitrogen on Jensen’s media is then beingtested. The results revealed that the suitable method and media ofendophytic bacteria isolation were spread plate method and NA.Based on the morphological characteristics differentiation, 30 isolates were obtained from rhizome (27 persen), stem (50 persen), and leaves(23 persen). The sequencing result of 16S rDNA showed that communityof endophytic bacteria was divided into six clusters, those are Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria,Flavobacteriia, Actinobacteria, and Firmicutes, which represented 17 genus consisted of Microbacterium, Leclercia, Brevundimonas,Chromobacterium, Enterobacter, Acinetobacter, Novosphingobium,Chryseobacterium, Curtobacterium, Agrobacterium, Sphingomonas,Herbaspirillium, Bacillus, Variovorax, Mycobacterium, Starkeya,and Rhizobium. A total of eleven isolates could grow in the N freemedium. The presence of endophytic bacteria those were able tofix nitrogen are expected to be applied in agricultural sector as abiological fertilizer. Widyariset | Vol. 2 No. 2 (2016) Hlm. 106 - 117