Plant growth promoting Rhizospheric bacteria (PGPR) are beneficial soil bacteria that enhance plant growth against biotic and abiotic stress. For the last three decades many studies had been conducted on isolation and characterization of plant growth promoting bacteria from the rhizosphere of different plants. However, no study was done on chalky soil rhizospheric bacteria.The purpose of this study was to assess the abundance (number) of culturable bacteria and to characterize plant growth promoting traits of some bacteria isolated from the rhizosphere of the wild legume plant Chamacytisus ruthenicus(Russian broom) that growing on chalky soil. To estimate the number of colony forming units (cfu), three soil samples were collected in January at a temperature of 2-4oC from the place where the Russian broom plants were grown. The first sample was taken from top soil, the second sample from the soil 15 cm deep and the third sample was from the rhizosphere. The result of the study revealed that the number of bacteria in the first, second and third soil sample were 4.25 x 108 cfu/g, 3.58 x 108 cfu/g and 10.1 x 107 cfu/g respectively. In the present study a total of 23 rhizospheric bacteria were isolated. On the ongoing work, by chance three strains (Z11, Z12 and Z15) were shown microbial inhibition against fungi. Including the above three, six strains (Z11, Z12, Z15, Z24, Z26 and Z44) were chosen for further investigation since they differ in colony colour, morphology and anti-microbial activity. As a conclusion, the present study is the first report of chalky soil associated bacteria found in the rhizosphere of Russian broom in the Belgorod region of Russia.
