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Crop Productivity Boosters: Native Mycorrhizal Fungi from an Old-Growth Grassland Benefits Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and Pepper (Capsicum annuum) Varieties in Organically Farmed Soils
Koziol, Liz Bever, James D.
Koziol, Liz
Bever, James D.
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Abstract
This paper investigates the response of five tomato and five pepper varieties to native arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal inoculation in an organic farming system. The field experiment was conducted across a growing season at a working organic farm in Lawrence, KS, USA. The researchers hypothesized that native AM fungi inoculation would improve crop biomass production for both crop species, but that the magnitude of response would depend on crop cultivar. The results showed that both crops were significantly positively affected by inoculation. AM fungal inoculation consistently improved total pepper biomass throughout the experiment (range of +2% to +8% depending on the harvest date), with a +3.7% improvement at the final harvest for inoculated plants. An interaction between pepper variety and inoculation treatment was sometimes observed, indicating that some pepper varieties were more responsive to AM fungi than others. Beginning at the first harvest, tomatoes showed a consistent positive response to AM fungal inoculation among varieties. Across the experiment, AM fungi-inoculated tomatoes had +10% greater fruit biomass, which was driven by a +20% increase in fruit number. The study highlights the potential benefits of using native AM fungi as a soil amendment in organic farmed soils to improve pepper and tomato productivity.
Description
This is a published version. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Date
2023-08-04
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MDPI
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Keywords
Annual crops, Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, Biofertilizers, Cultivars, Genotypic and phenotypic variation, Inoculation, Organic farming, Vegetables, Symbiosis
Citation
Koziol L, Bever JD. Crop Productivity Boosters: Native Mycorrhizal Fungi from an Old-Growth Grassland Benefits Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and Pepper (Capsicum annuum) Varieties in Organically Farmed Soils. Microorganisms. 2023 Aug 4;11(8):2012. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms11082012. PMID: 37630572; PMCID: PMC10457834