Materials and methods
Isolation, selection and identification of putative antagonistic bacterial strains from the rhizosphere
Fifty-four bacteria were isolated from eighteen soil samples collected from the rhizosphere region of B. campestris plants. Bacterial isolates were selected by growth on distinctive media such as King’s B (KB, Himedia) and Luria Bertani (LB, Himedia) containing 100 lg ml -1 of cycloheximide (Sigma), to suppress fungal growth. All bacterial strains were kept at -80C in tryptic soya broth (TSB, Difco) containing glycerol (25%, v/v).