ABSTRACT
In the current study, eleven bacterial endophytes were isolated from the shoot system of aromatic medicinal plant Pelargonium graveolens .L. that inhabits North Sinai-Egypt . Out of eleven isolates, two identified on the basis of high nitrogen fixation as Bacillus subtilis (G5s) and Bacillus velezensis (G6s). The bacterial endophytic isolates showed varied activities as plant growth promoting agents. These two bacterial isolates have activity for ammonia production, siderophores and HCN. They exhibited enhanced qualitative Nitrogen fixation activity as well as quantitatively (nitrogenase assay) 365.667±1.8 C2H4/ml/24h and 87.767±1.6 C2H4/ml/24h respectively. They showed no significant assessment in phosphorus solubilization. The ability of the two isolates for producing phytohormone, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) was detected using Salkowski's reagent and confirmed their productivity for IAA, gibberellic acid, abscisic acid, benzyl, kinetin, and ziaten by HPLC, G6s isolate exhibited maximum productivity of IAA with recorded 74.0 ± 2.1 mg mL–1 in the presence of 5 mg mL-1 tryptophan after 14 days. These two isolates had a high potential enzymatic activity for amylase, protease, cellulase, chitinase, and catalase except G6s that don't release amylase enzyme.