On-farm production of VAM inoculum and vegetable crops in soils amended with organic matter

GAUR, ATIMANAV¹, ALOK ADHOLEYA² & KRISHNA G. MUKERJI³.

¹Botany Dept, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA. ²Tata Energy Research Institute, Habitat Place, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110 003, INDIA. ³ Applied Mycology Laboratory, Botany Department, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 007, INDIA.

Various vegetable crops were inoculated with VAM fungi grown in nutrient deficient sandy-loam soils amended with two levels of organic matter. Under field conditions, shoot and root dry weights and total uptake of P and N of all tested plants were significantly increased by VAM inoculation. The vegetable crops differed in their ability to colonize VAM fungi with a 76%, 63% and 60% colonization in coriandrum, Daucus and Trigonella, respectively. Number of infectious propagules were high in coriandrum and Trigonella. VAM inoculation resulted in increase in green yield at both the levels of organic amendments, though the increase was low at higher amendment. The high levels of VAM colonization in roots of these three crops and large number of infectious propagules demonstrated the potential to use these crops for inoculum production and suggest the possibility of using VAM in crop yield enhancement.