MICROFUNGAL COMMUNITY FROM ORGANICALLY AMMENDED SOILS ASSOCIATED WITH COMMON BEAN AND BELL PEPPER CROPS

Abstract

Soil is a reservoir of microorganisms including microfungi that play a key role as saprotrophs, plant mutualists, symbionts, decomposers, pathogens and excellent bio-indicators of soil quality. The diversity of soil fungi communities is influenced by products used in the life cycle of each crop. This study aimed to evaluate the diversity of soil fungal community in bean and bell pepper crop. For pepper crop two plant protection methods were applied - i) diatomite in three different doses: 75 kg ha-1 (T1), 150 kg ha-1 (T2), and 300 kg ha-1 (T3) and ii) biological control agent Trichoderma asperellum Td85 strain (T4). For bean crop the T4 was not applied. After soil isolation for bean crop resulted 461 colonies clustered in 49 OTUs while for pepper resulted 436 colonies clustered in 56 OTUs. Pepper crop had a higher activity of soil fungi compared to bean crop, fact evidenced by a higher index of Simpson 1-D (evenness), Shannon (richness and the evenness) and Margalef (richness) tests. Even if treatment with Trichoderma sp. wasn`t applied on bean crop, the fungus was present in the soil naturally and had the highest value of CF% (colonization frequency).