Screening mycorrhiza species for plant growth, P and Zn uptake in pepper seedling grown under greenhouse conditions

We screened the mycorrhizal species for an inoculum protocol would green pepper seedling production and compensate for nutrient deficiency. Three greenhouse studies (on three successive years) were conducted under nursery conditions using five arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and their mixture. The AM fungi, Glomus mosseae, G. clarum, G. caledonium, G. intra radices and G. etunicatum propagated on maize roots were used. The AM fungi were inoculated to seed stages and half of the seed stages inoculated plants were re-inoculated at the seedling stages. In Experiment I, plants were harvested once and in Experiments II and III, plants were harvested twice at different developmental stages. Results showed that inoculated plants with G. mosseae, G. intraradices, G. etunicatum, G. clarum, G. caledonium and the mixture of these fungi had increase in shoot, root dry weight. P and Zn content compared to control plants. Mycorrhizal inoculated pepper seedlings flowered earlier than non-inoculated plants. After three successive years, seed and seedling stages inoculation with different AM fungal species varied with the fungal species considered mycorrhizal symbiosis have a different effect on seedling growth was dependent on the fungal species inoculated. Although the mycorrhization increased the seedling quality in all the experiments and the contribution of each individual species varied, this variation was not consistent over the three years. Our results indicate that AM species can be used to compensate for Zn and P deficiency under P and Zn deficient soils for pepper plants. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.