Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

INFECTION POTENTIAL OF AM BASED BIO-FERTILIZERS USING ZEA MAYS

Nalini Singh, Mubasshra Mirza, Sunita Rajbhar, Jyoti Vishwakarma and Sunita Chahar

Abstract

AMF (Arbuscular mycorrhizal Fungi) shows symbiotic association with plants root which helps the plants for their proper growth and development by providing all the nutrients to them. AMF is also used as biofertilizers with suitable carrier material. In the present study, pot experiment was conducted to evaluate the infection potential of commercially available, three different carrier-based AM fertilizers using Zea mays. After 30 days, infection was checked by staining the roots with trypan blue (Philips and Hayman method, 1970) and spore density checked by wet sieving method (Gerdeman and Nicolson method (1963). Out of three commercial samples, commercial sample 2 showed maximum spore count (8.67±1.53/ 10g of sample) as well as infection potential (23.67±2.52%) on Zea mays plant compared to other two samples of commercial bio-fertilizers. pH and NPK content of commercial AMF bio-fertilizers were also checked. The pH of the all the three samples ranged between 6.2 to 7.0. NPK content of commercial bio-fertilizer1, 2 and 3 were found to be (N-0.083%, P- 0%, K-6.3%), (N-0.12%, P- 0%, K-3.2%) and (N-0.23%, P- 0%, K-8.4%) respectively.