*4.6. Plant Growth Promotion by Streptomyces Strain In Vivo*

To assess putative plant growth promotion by the CARA17 strain on fennel plants, during both the experiments described above (TEST1 and TEST2), all plants were cut at the basis of the collar, and all tissues of epigeal (collar, stem and leaves) and hypogeal portions (root), after a careful washing, were separately weighed and put into a stove at 105 ◦C until reaching a constant dry weight. For all trials, the average weight of 15 fennel plants (epigeal and hypogeal portions) were calculated. To determine whether these data followed normal distributions, the Shapiro–Wilk test (W test) was used. The homogeneity of variance of the datasets was assessed on the basis of fresh and dried weights of fennel seedlings using the Levene test. One-way ANOVA was performed using Statistica v. 6 (StatSoft, Hamburg, Germany) to determine the significant differences in fresh and dried weights recorded during both kinds of antagonist inoculation (by dipping and by pouring after transplanting). Fisher's test was used for the comparison of the treatment means, at *p* < 0.01.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, A.C. and M.L.R.; methodology, A.C., M.L.R., D.C. and F.L.; software, A.C. and M.L.R.; validation, A.C. and M.L.R.; formal analysis, A.C., M.L.R., D.C. and F.L.; investigation, A.C., M.L.R. and D.C.; resources, A.C.; data curation, A.C. and M.L.R.; writing—original draft preparation, A.C.; writing—review and editing, A.C. and M.L.R.; supervision, A.C. and M.L.R.; project administration, A.C.; funding acquisition, A.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
