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Dark Septate Root Endophytic Fungus Nectria haematococca Improves Tomato Growth Under Water Limiting Conditions

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Abstract

The ascomycetous dark septate endophytic (DSE) fungi characterized by their melanized hyphae can confer abiotic stress tolerance in their associated plants in addition to improving plant growth and health. In this study inoculation of the DSE fungus Nectria haematococca Berk. & Broome significantly improved all the plant growth parameters like the plant height, stem girth, leaf characteristics and plant biomass of drought-stressed tomato. Root characters like the total root length, primary root diameter, 2nd order root number and diameter, root hair number and length were also significantly influenced by the fungal inoculation. Nevertheless, N. haematococca inoculation did not affect root colonization by native arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and no significant correlation existed between the AM and DSE fungal variables examined. The proline accumulation in shoots of N. haematococca inoculated plants was significantly higher than uninoculated plants. The present study clearly indicates for the first time the ability of the DSE fungus, N. haematococca in inducing the drought stress tolerance and promoting the growth of the host plant under water stress.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Root and Soil Biology Laboratory, Department of Botany, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, 641046, India

    Piramanagayam Prema Sundara Valli & Thangavelu Muthukumar

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  1. Piramanagayam Prema Sundara Valli
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  2. Thangavelu Muthukumar
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Contributions

TM conceived the research and designed the experiment, PPSV carried out the experiment, and TM and PPSV wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thangavelu Muthukumar.

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The Authors declared that they have no conflict of interests.

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Prema Sundara Valli, P., Muthukumar, T. Dark Septate Root Endophytic Fungus Nectria haematococca Improves Tomato Growth Under Water Limiting Conditions. Indian J Microbiol 58, 489–495 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12088-018-0749-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12088-018-0749-6

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