Plant growth promoting ability of Bacillus megaterium, isolated from mango fruit compost samples collected from Vinsari and Varsha fruit processing industries around Tirupati, Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, was tested on groundnut variety JL24 obtained from S.V. Agricultural University in potted condition. Bacillus megaterium promoted growth in terms of shoot length, root length, no. of leaves, total dry mass and it had improved the percentage of germination over uninoculated controls was recorded during 15 to 45 days in potted conditions. In the present study, four treatments were set up with different variables to evaluate the effect of inoculation with seed treatment. A significant increase was recorded in the shoot length, root length, 100% seed germination, no. of leaves, dry mass weight in grams per plant and mean daily germination were observed in treated seeds when compared to control. Among all treatments, Treatment4 (T4), in which soil was amended with mango peel pectin medium kept for fermentation showed maximum growth of the plant. The present study also suggested that mango fruit peel found to be the best substrate for pectinase production by Bacillus megaterium among the various agricultural wastes. Bacillus megaterium has been found to be a good plant growth promoter with the ability to increase growth of ground nut plants.
