Effect of drought and inoculation of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in enhancing productivity and tolerance mechanism of grasses

Abstract

Drought stress considered to be one of the most important limiting abiotic factors of plant growth and yield in many areas, and Arbuscula Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) symbiosis can protect host plants against its detrimental effect. This research was conducted to study the effect of drought and inoculation of Arbuscula Mycorrhizal Fungi on the productivity and tolerance mechanisms of Stenotaphrum secundatum and Ischaemum timurensis grasses. This research used a completely randomized design with four treatments: D0(Control), D1 (with AMF), D2 (drought), and D3 (drought and with AMF). Parameters observed were the soil moisture content, leaf water potential, leaf relative water content, shoot and root dry weight, root length, proline, and soluble sugar. The data were analyzed with analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the differences between treatments were analyzed with Duncan range test. The results showed that drought stress significantly (P<0.05) decreased soil water content, leaf water potential, leaf relative water content, shoot dry weight in Stenotaphrum secundatum. Drought stress significantly (P<0.05) decreased soil water content and leaf water potential, but enhanced proline and soluble sugar content in Ischaemum timurensis. AMF inoculation did not affect productivity of Stenotaphrum secundatum, but in Ischaemum timurensis enhanced proline and soluble sugar content but decreased leaf water potential on drought stress. One of the tolerance mechanism in Ischaemum timuriensis is by increasing the proline and soluble sugar contents.