Fungal Endophytes Enhance Agronomically Important Traits in Severely Drought-Stressed Barley

Crops often face severe and damaging local drought events, and in some regions, these episodes are predicted to become more frequent due to climate change. Some micro-organisms have been shown to improve drought tolerance and improve yield in crop plants. Here, we show that fungal root endophytes isolated from a wild barley species (Hordeum murinum subsp. murinum) induced significant improvements in agronomic traits for a severely drought-stressed barley cultivar grown in a controlled environment, including number of tillers, grain yield and shoot biomass. Five endophyte strains were tested, and the trait that showed the greatest significant difference in the drought-stressed plants was the number of tillers, where all of the endophyte treatments induced a greater number of tillers per plant. However, except in one case, the mean dry root weight for all plants was greater in the control plants, indicating preferential allocation of resources to aboveground parts in the endophyte treatments. Results were not consistent across all endophyte treatments, with some endophytes performing much better than others. As these growth studies were conducted using soil-based compost, the results may translate to the field and suggest that some of these endophytes have potential as barley inoculants in arid growing conditions.