PREVALENCE AND DISTRIBUTION OF ARBUSCULAR MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI ASSOCIATED WITH SOME SPICES

Abstract

With increasing population, the land under cultivation has been degraded due to industrialization or urbanization and with human activities. As a result of this, problems to land scarcity occurs a head the farmers. So, efforts have been made to reach the world food demand with increasing population. Food production was increased with increase use of chemicals and fertilizers which have further resulted in environmental problems. The goal of sustainable development in agriculture can be viewed broadly as maximum plant production with a minimum soil loss. Among the different microbial groups, which have been proposed for plant inoculation, much attention has been given to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. newlineAM fungi increase the plant growth and yield through nutrient uptake and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress and this has led to the researchers to explore possibilities of using AM fungi in production of different spice crops. newlineA total of 12 spice plant species belonging to 11 genera were selected from different localities of Udham Singh Nagar. Out of these total 12 spice plants, 8 species belonging to 7 families represent dicot group and 4 species belonging to 2 families represent monocot group. In present investigation, soil and root samples of the selected crops collected from different parts of Udham Singh Nagar and its adjoining areas for studying mycorrhizal status and spore biodiversity of AM fungi. In studied crops, root colonization ranged from zero to 95.66 percent. Among studied crpos, Allium sativum L., Allium cepa L., Mentha arvensis L., Trigonella foenum graceum L., Coriandrum sativum L. and Curcuma longa L. showed maximum root colonization, Capsicum annuum L. and Cinnamomum tamala showed average mycorrhizal root colonization, Murraya koenigii and Elettaria cardamomum were observed to be least mycorrhizal and Brassica compestris L. were observed to be non-mycorrhizal. Maximum root colonization ranged from 55-100%, average from 40-55% and least from 10-40%. newline newline