The endophytic fungus Piriformospora indica protects wheat from fusarium crown rot disease in simulated UK autumn conditions

Abstract

The root endophytic fungus Piriformospora indica (Sebacinacea) forms mutualistic symbioses with a broad range of host plants, increasing their biomass production and resistance to fungal pathogens. This study evaluated the effect of P. indica on fusarium crown rot disease of wheat, under in vitro and glasshouse conditions. Interaction of P. indica and Fusarium isolates under axenic culture conditions indicated no direct antagonistic activity of P. indica against Fusarium isolates. Seedlings of wheat were inoculated with P. indica and pathogenic Fusarium culmorum or F. graminearum and grown in sterilized soil‐free medium or in a non‐sterilized mix of soil and sand. Fusarium alone reduced emergence and led to visible browning and reduced root growth. Roots of seedlings in pots inoculated with both Fusarium isolates and P. indica were free of visible symptoms; seed emergence and root biomass were equivalent to the uninoculated. DNA was quantified by real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). The ratio of FusariumDNA to wheat DNA rose rapidly in the plants inoculated with Fusarium alone; isolates and species were not significantly different. Piriformospora indica inoculation reduced the ratio of Fusarium to host DNA in the root systems. The reduction increased with time. The ratio of P. indica to wheat DNA initially rose but then declined in root systems without Fusarium. With Fusarium, the ratio rose throughout the experiment. The absolute amount of FusariumDNA in root systems increased in the absence of P. indica but was static in plants co‐inoculated with P. indica.

Improvement of Soil Properties, Growth of Cucumber and Protection against Fusarium Wilt by Piriformospora indica and Two Industrial Organic Wastes

“…This is in agreement with the results of histological studies performed with the fungus on other plants colonized by P. indica such as wheat (Serfling et al, 2007;Yilmaz, 2013;Rabiey et al, 2015;Moharam et al, 2017), barley (Waller et al, 2007;Yilmaz, 2013), maize (Kumar et al, 2009;Rane et al, 2015) and rice (Bagheri et al, 2014). Colonization of cucumber roots with P. indica was also confirmed by PCR diagnosis.…”

“…In these test, a clear antagonism between both fungi was not found. A lack of an antagonistic effect of P. indica on other species of Fusarium such as F. culmorum, F. graminearum, F. verticillioides or F. oxysporum causing root diseases on different plants has been reported before (Deshmukh and Kogel, 2007;Kumar et al, 2009;Rabiey et al, 2015;Moharam et al, 2017). Also, on agar media amended with culture filtrate of P. indica a negative effect on mycelial growth of Fo was not seen (data not shown), confirming the results of the dual culture test.…”

“…A protection against root diseases caused by Fusarium spp. due to induction of resistance by P. indica has been reported before in different plants (Deshmukh and Kogel, 2007;Kumar et al, 2009;Rabiey et al, 2015;Moharam et al, 2017). Possibly, the disease reducing efficacy of the BA and PM amendments seen in the pot experiment was the result of a combined effect of the fungistatic properties of the amendments toward Fo on the one hand and an increase in the abundance of P. indica, especially in autoclaved soil amended with BA and PM, on the other.…”

Piriformospora indica reduces fusarium head blight disease severity and mycotoxin DON contamination in wheat under UK weather conditions

“…Inoculum was prepared according to the methods described by Rabiey et al . (). Piriformospora indica liquid culture containing an unquantified mixture of chlamydospores and mycelium was used for inoculation by mixing with soil at sowing time.…”

“…hordei) under glasshouse and field conditions (Ghahfarokhy et al, 2011;Waller et al, 2005;Deshmukh & Kogel, 2007;Harrach et al, 2013). Previous work has shown that P. indica association protects wheat seedlings from FCR damage in simulated UK autumn conditions (Rabiey et al, 2015).…”