(319) Mycorrhizal Symbiosis and Response of Sorghum Plants to Combined Drought and Salt Stresses

Abstract

Colonization of roots by arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi can increase host resistance to drought stress, although the effect is unpredictable. Since AM symbiosis also frequently increases host resistance to salt stress, and since drought and salt stress are often linked in drying soils, we speculated that the AM influence on plant drought response may be linked to AM influence on salt stress. We tested the hypothesis that AM-induced effects on drought responses would be more pronounced when plants of comparable size are exposed to drought in salinized soils. In two greenhouse experiments, several water relations characteristics were measured in sorghum plants colonized by Glomus intraradices, Gigaspora margarita, or a mixture of AM species during a sustained drought following exposure to salt treatments (NaCl stress, osmotic stress, or soil leaching). The presence of excess salt in soils widened the difference in drought responses between AM and non-AM plants in just two instances: days needed for plants to reach stomatal closure, and promotion of stomatal conductance. In other instances, the addition of salt tended to nullify an AM-induced change in drought response; e.g., an AM effect on the decline in leaf or soil water potential required to cause stomatal closure disappeared when soils were salinized. Our findings confirm that AM fungi can alter host response to drought but do not lend much support to the idea that AM-induced salt resistance might help explain why AM plants can be more resilient to drought stress than their non-AM counterparts.