Bacillus licheniformis SA03 was isolated from the rhizospheric soils of Chrysanthemum plants grown under saline–alkaline conditions, and identified by 16S rDNA sequencing (GenBank No. KY828223). This bacteria strain was inoculated into MCF liquid medium (Freitas et al., 2015), and incubated in an orbital shaker (200 rpm) at 28°C for 18 h. Bacteria were collected by centrifugation at 8000 rpm at 4°C for 15 min and the centrifugal tubes were washed with 0.1 M phosphate-buffered saline (PBS, pH 7.2), and were then diluted to an OD570 nm absorbance of 0.7 in PBS buffer for microbial inoculation.