Lallemantia Iberica and Lallemantia Royleana: The Effect of Mycorrhizal Fungal Inoculation on Growth and Mycorrhizal Dependency under Sterile and Non‐sterile Soils

ABSTRACT

This study evaluated the effects of mycorrhizal species inoculation on the growth of Lallemantia species. Two pot experiments were performed to determine mycorrhizal species effects on growth, yield, mycorrhizal dependency, root colonization, and seed quality. Under sterile soil conditions, Lallemantia iberica and Lallemantia royleana were inoculated with Funneliformis mosseae, Funneliformis caledonius, Rhizophagus intraradices, Claroideoglomus etunicatum, Claroideoglomus claroideum, Rhizophagus fasciculatus and Diversisporles epigaea. Among mycorrhizal species, Cl. etunicatum (M₁), Fu. mosseae (M₂) and R. intraradices (M₃) were most effective on root colonization on both species of Lallemantia. In the main experiment, for both plant species of Lallemantia, the growth, yield and yield components, seed quality, and mycorrhizal dependency (MD) parameters were studied under non-sterile and sterile soil conditions using three optimal mycorrhizal species (M₁), (M₂), (M₃), and their mixture. Both plant species grown in non-sterile soil grew better than in sterile soil conditions. The integrated application of M₁ + M₂ + M₃ had a better effect on measured parameters of Lallemantia species. Inoculated and non-inoculated L. iberica showed higher growth and produced more yield, thousand grain weight, phosphorus, and oil content. The number of silique in plant, number of seed in plant, mucilage, and MD of inoculated and non-inoculated L. royleana were higher than L. iberica. Generally, our result showed that both species of Lallemantia were mycorrhizal dependent, and soil sterilization led to killing of all indigenous mycorrhizal species, and as a result, it caused to decrease the growth of Lallemantia species.

KEYWORDS:

• AM fungi species
• grain yield
• root colonization
• oil content
• seed phosphorus

Acknowledgments

We kindly acknowledge the Shahed University of Tehran for their support on this research and Prof Mohammadreza Chaichi for reading and advising on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

This manuscript has not been published or presented elsewhere in part or in entirety and is not under consideration by another journal. All the authors have approved the manuscript and agree with the submission. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Funding