Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and P. notatum
significantly increased dry matter and yield of groundnut plants as
compared to the control plants. Also, a significant increment in percentage of
protein and oil as well as an increase in the percentage of N and P content of the
plant was noticed. The increase in N levels of groundnut plants was, however,
nonsignificant with the percentage of total P, under the experimental conditions.
4.6.4 Vegetable and Horticultural Crop
4.6.4.1 Cucumber
Aspergillus
PPA1 significantly increased shoot length, shoot fresh weight, shoot dry
weight, root length, root fresh weight, root dry weight, plant length, leaf area and
leaf chlorophyll content of cucumber (
Cucumis sativus
) plants compared to
non-treated control plants. The growth rate of plants increased with the increasing
concentration of fungal inoculum applied to soil. The fungus was re-isolated from
the roots of cucumber plants at higher frequencies. These results suggest that
Aspergillus
spp. PPA1could be used as a root-colonizing plant-growth-promoting
fungus for enhancing the overall performance of cucumber (Islam et al.
2014
).
4.6.4.2 Lettuce and Tomato
Kohler et al. (
2007
) observed that a joint inoculation of
P. albidum
with native
mycorrhizae had a synergistic effect on the growth of lettuce (
Lactuca sativa
). Also,
Penicillium albidum
possessed with the capacity to solubilize both inorganic and
organic P enhanced the growth and mineral nutrition of lettuce plants growing in a
volcanic soil (Morales et al.
2011
). In other experiments conducted by Sibi (
2011
),
the co-inoculation of
A. awamori and T. viride
significantly increased the nutrient
value of the compost. A maximum P content (64.3 %) was observed in
co-inoculation treatment which was followed by single inoculation of
A. awamori
(62.2 %). The present findings revealed that PS fungi can interact positively in
promoting nutrient content of compost and tomato (
Solanum lycopersicum
) growth
leading to improved yield. A similar increase in the yield and dry matter content of
tomato plants due to inoculation of nursery root-dip culture of
A. niger
is reported
(Anwer and Khan
2013
). Salicylic acid, total phenolic and chlorophyll contents of
plant, and lycopene, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), Brix index, diameter of fruit skin,
and rate of pressure tolerance of tomato fruit were increased compared to untreated
control plants. Among all isolates,
A. niger
SkNAn5 was found to be the most
efficient and increased yield by 54 % and dry matter of tomato plants by 59.8 %.
A. niger
SkNAn5 also significantly increased the salicylic acid of root and fruit
quality of tomato, having increased amount of vitamin C (35.59 g/100 g against
