Influence of mycorrhization during the hardening process of micropropagated plants

Abstract

This work aims to know the effect of the Glomus intraradices fungus substratum inoculation on the survival, development and nutritive status of cassava, grape and olive plants during hardening. Micropropagated plants of cassava, grape and olive were transplanted individually to 2 L pots filled half of them with steamy sterilized soil and the other half with the same soil inoculated with Glomus intraradices fungus. The potted plants were placed in a culture chamber and irrigated only with tap water, maintaining field capacity. The number of dead plants, stem plus shoots growth, fresh and dry weight and nutritive status of mycorrhized and non mycorrhized plants of each species were recorded at 60 days for cassava, 30 days for grape and 180 days for olive. Presence of the fungus in the roots of each plant species was checked by staining with trypan blue. Due to the high survival percentage of the control plants, non significant differences between the survival of the control and mycorrhizal cassava and grape plants were found. On the contrary, there was a beneficial effect of mycorrhizal on olive plant surviving. With the differences due to time (days from transplanting) and plant species, in all cases mycorrhizal significantly improved aerial plant growth and biomass production. Mycorrhizal only affected positively the relative content of P in both cassava and olive plants, and Fe in olive. Considering the bigger biomass of the mycorrhized plants the total amount of each nutrient was higher in these plants. All the mycorrhizal plants responded positively to trypan blue treatment.