Mediation and Screening of Root Endophytes for Sustainable Agriculture in Kandi Region of Punjab

Abstract

The effect of changing environment, plants have developed mutualistic relationships with many soil borne root colonizing microorganisms (endophytes) which tend to benefit plants by accumulating micro and macro nutrients from soil and provide them to the host plants. In this study, field trials of Piriformospora indica (Fungus alone; T1) and in combination with soil borne bacterium Azotobacter chroococcum (Fungal-Bacterial combination; T2) based bioformulation was conducted in the Kandi zone (rainfed region) of Punjab on Mustard and Maize crops, whereas only T1 was applied to Linseed. Observations were taken at the time of harvesting during 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17 for Mustard and Maize; whereas linseed trials were conducted during 2014-15 and 2015-16. Results from the study revealed both the treatments to improve the agro-morphological traits of treated plants in the rainfed land as compared to the control (non-inoculated). However, T2 (Fungal-bacterial combination) was found to be more efficient in between the treatments. In this study, a novel plant growth promoting fungal strain was also isolated from the natural vegetation of the kandi zone. The fungal isolate was identified as Talaromyces purpureogenus strain HNB9 (NCBI accession number: SUB2443878 HNB9 KY70501) with characteristic secretion of red color pigments as secondary metabolites (unidentified). The study concludes that P. indica and its related microbial consortium (A. chroococcum) benefits the plants by significantly improving the overall plant growth attributes and gross yield even in low irrigational rainfed land. The increase in the gross yield of economically important plants such as Mustard, Maize and linseed in small landholdings improves the farmers profit by 15-20%. Talaromyces purpureogenus HNB9 can be further studied for its plant growth promoting properties on field and the red pigment secreted by the fungus can be extracted and characterized for its possible application in textile and natural food colorant industries. newline