Differential growth response of various crop species to arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculation

Abstract

To investigate the growth response of various crop species to mycorrhizal inoculation, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi were applied to Glycine max, Vigna angularis, Senna tora, Hordeum vulgare var. hexastichon. Zea mays, Sorghum bicolor, Allium tuberosum, Solanum melongena, and Capsicum annuum. The biomass of the inoculated crops was measured every two weeks for the 12-week growth period. By measuring biomass, we calculated the mycorrhizal responsiveness of the nine crop species. Among the nine crop species, four species showed a significant response to mycorrhizal inoculation. The shoot biomasses of V. angularis, C. annuum, A. tuberosum, and S. tora significantly increased with mycorrhizal inoculation.

Keywords: AM fungi; Mycorrhizal dependency; Relative growth rate.

Fig. 1

Growth responses of plants to mycorrhizal inoculation. Mean ± SE at 12 weeks after planting. AM (open circle), mycorrhizal plants; NM (dark circle), non-mycorrhizal control plants.

Fig. 2

Mycorrhizal responsiveness of plant species used in this study. GM; Glycine max, VA; Vigna angularis, ST; Senna tora, SM; Solanum melongena, CA; Capsicum anuum, AT; Allium tuberosum, HV; Hordeum vulgare var. hexastichon, ZM; Zea mays, SB; Sorghum bicolor. Asterisks on bars indicate significant responses to mycorrhizal inoculation at P = 0.05. ^*MR = Mycorrhizal responsiveness (%) = [mean biomass mycorrhizal plant - mean biomass non-mycorrhizal plant)/mean biomass mycorrhizal plant] × 100. Asterisks on the bars indicate that mean biomass of inoculated plant was significantly different from non-inoculated control as determined by two-sample t-test at P < 0.05.