Abstract
Since last three decades, the increased use of chemical fertilizers in agriculture undoubtedly increased the food grain production and helped the country in achieving self-sufficiency in food grains. However, it also produced many harmful effects like water supply contaminations, shortage of quality of agricultural products and decrease in the amount of soil fertility. The study was performed to evaluate whether Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) improved Growth and Nutrient status in some important annual leguminous crops using Cow pea (Vigna unguiculate L) as a study material. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are important soil organisms belonging to phylum Glomeromycota and form symbiotic association with the roots of 70-90 % plant species. A pot experiment was conducted at Botanical Garden, School of Studies in Botany Jiwaji University Gwalior during the year 2019 to study the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi viz Glomus hoi and Acaulospora kentinensis on seed germination, growth and biochemical contents of cow pea Vigna unguiculata L. The Plants were raised in triplicates through the pot culture. The seeds were surface sterilized by hypochlorite solution before sowing. Pots were placed at a sunny place after the seed sowing. And after the seed germination, plants were irrigated when required. After germination the inoculated plants along with their controls was sampled. The results showed that Glomus hoi and Acaulospora kentinensis significantly increased growth parameters like root and shoot length, total leaf area, fresh and dry weight of roots and shoots in Vigna unguiculata L. Inoculation of Glomus hoi and Acaulospora kentinensis significantly increases the biochemical constituents like chlorophyll- a, chlorophyll-b, total chlorophyll, protein, carbohydrate, reducing sugar, non reducing sugar and total phenol. The present study pertains that AMF colonization improved positively the overall growth and development of cow Pea plant.
Highlights
Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.) is an important crop commonly called as poor man’s meat because of its sufficiently great source of vitamins, proteins and minerals for poor people who are not able to get such nutrients from animal source like fish and meat (Gondwe et al, 2019)
Plant root percentage colonization of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) was higher in the pots inoculated with the combination Glomus hoi and Acaulospora kentinensis
Modern cowpea cultivars are still responsive to mycorrhizal inoculation suggesting that modern breeding programs are not deleterious AMF symbiosis (Oruru et al, 2018)
Summary
Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.) is an important crop commonly called as poor man’s meat because of its sufficiently great source of vitamins, proteins and minerals for poor people who are not able to get such nutrients from animal source like fish and meat (Gondwe et al, 2019). Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus belongs to division Glomeromycota and forms symbiosis with eighty five percent of all plant families (Lone et al, 2015). Arbuscules are the characteristic intra radical mycelium structures that are highly branched within host cells in order to mediate resource exchange between the symbionts They are ephemeral structures and at the end of their life span, arbuscular branches collapse from the tip, fungal cytoplasm withdraws and the whole arbuscules shrinks into the fungal clumps. Glomus hoi is an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi belongs to family Glomeraceae and division Glomeromycota. It forms symbiotic association with several plants and helps plants in increasing growth and biochemical parameters. Acaulospora kentinensis is a species of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal fungi belonging to the family Acaulosporaceae It forms mycelium, vesicles and arbuscules with roots of several plant (Janos DP and Trappe JM., 1982). In the present study the above two species were used because they are native to Madhya Pradesh region as we have isolated these two fungi from rhizospheric regions of several agricultural sites of Gwalior region
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