Abstract

Diuron is one of the major hazardous pollutants which posses severe risk to the environment and human healthiness. On the other hand, salinity is the most severe environmental stressor that limits crop productivity. Therefore, it is required to address this co-existing abiotic stresses in agricultural soil. Plant growth–promoting rhizobacteria have gained an engaging role in the degradation of pesticides in agricultural soil. However, their role against the restoration of diuron-contaminated saline soil is still not known. Thus, in this study, diuron-degrading, salinity-tolerant Stenotrophomonas rhizophila strain CASB3 was isolated and characterized. Strain CASB3 showed important PGP traits under normal and diuron or salt stresses. Complete degradation of 10–50 mg L−1 diuron in the aqueous medium under normal and salinity stress conditions was achieved within 48–120 h and 48–192 h, respectively. A unique pathway for diuron biodegradation was proposed based on GC-MS analysis. In a greenhouse study, CASB3 inoculated into diuron-contaminated saline soil efficiently degraded diuron (50 mg kg−1) by 94% in 42 days and simultaneously resulted in an enhancement of root-shoot length (47.22–63.41%), fresh-dry biomass (136.36–156.66%), and photosynthetic pigments (36.93–92.28%) in Lactuca sativa plants. These results suggest the strain CASB3 could be used as a bioresource for the reclamation of diuron-contaminated saline soils.