Agriculture Reference
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the carbon release due to increased microbial activity under elevated CO 2
levels, which need to be elucidated.
14.2
ROLE OF AMF
Harnessing AMF, in perennial and annual horticultural systems give us
with alternative for successful agriculture in marginal and submarginal ar-
eas. The symbiotic association between perennial plants and microorgan-
isms play an important role in soil fertilization, improving growth, mineral
nutrition, abiotic and biotic stresses tolerance, phytoremidiation, etc. Ar-
buscular mycorrhizal fungi are the common symbiotic association, which
produce fungal structure (vesicles and arbuscules) in cortical root cells.
This symbiotic association is found in most of the plants of arctic, temper-
ate and tropical regions, including aquatic and desert environments. My-
corrhiza is the mutualistic symbiosis (nonpathogenic association) between
soil-borne fungi with the roots of higher plants. The endomycorrhizae are
characterized by inter and intracellular mycelial growth in the root cortex,
forming specific fungal structures, referred to as vesicles and arbuscles.
This characteristic growth gives the endomycorrhizae the alternate name;
vesicular arbuscular mycorrhiza (VAM), presently called AMF since all
the mycorrhizae do not form vesicles. About 80% of all terrestrial plant
species form this type of symbiosis (Smith and Read, 1997). The arbuscu-
lar mycorrhizal fungi belong to taxonomic order called Glomales, which
comprises of six genera (Fig. 14.1).
FIGURE 14.1 The current taxonomy of AMF with examples of different genera in soil
(adapted from Dodd, 2000).
 
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