Effect of Glomus intraradices spore abundance of the inoculum on percent mycorrhizal colonization and growth of Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper

Abstract

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are well known symbiotic microorganism found to improve the growth of host plant by mobilizing immobile nutrients, mainly phosphorus, from the soil. However, the effect of AM fungi on host plant growth depends on the percentage mycorrhizal colonization, whereas it is not clear that the percent mycorrhization impacts by AM fungal spore abundance of the inoculum. Therefore, the current investigation was conducted to know the effect of percent mycorrhization of Glomus intraradices on the growth of blackgram inoculated with varied numbers of AM fungal spores via seed biotization (1 to 10 AM fungal spores per seed). Percent mycorrhizal colonization and plant growth characteristics of blackgram were recorded after 10, 20 and 30 days of sowing (DOS). Our results are revealed that the percentage of mycorrhizal colonization significantly influenced based on the availability of AM fungal spore richness of the biotized seeds, which leads to altered crop growth. Percent mycorrhizal colonization in the roots of blackgram increased with increasing AM fungal spore abundance per seed and it ranges from 10 to 70 %. Moreover, mycorrhizal colonized plants recorded higher shoot and root length, leaf area, leaf area index, shoot and root biomass production as well as chlorophyll content over control, conversely it was increased further with increasing percent mycorrhizal colonization, which is directly proportional to the richness of the AM fungal spores per seed. Therefore, AM fungal spore abundance is one of the governing factors that influence percent mycorrhizal colonization in roots of plants besides AM fungal and plant species and soil condition.

Seed Coating with Biodegradable Stickers for Enhancement of Inoculant Viability and Their Beneficial Properties on Seed Germination of Blackgram [Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper.]

“…The seedling roots were observed after seven days for colonisation (Fig 3). Selvaraj and Thangavel (2022) documented the colonization of blackgram roots by AMF within 10 days of inoculation. For the sticking agents analysed, the spore count per seedlings were 0, 5, 35, 30 and 17 for control seed, water, gum arabic, guar gum and xanthan gum treatments respectively.…”

“…The use of sticking agent which were in sticky consistency might enhance the microbial spore adherence to the seed surface and immobilised it. AMF spore abundance on the seed surface is directly proportional to the percent root mycorrhizal colonization (Selvaraj and Thangavel, 2022).…”