Title : Endophytic Fusarium oxysporum GW controlling weed and an effective biostimulant for wheat growth
Abstract:
The wheat crop is severely affected by weeds reducing its quantity and quality. One of the important weed control strategy is mechanical control based which is time and labor intensive. Synthetic weedicides is another mean of weed control strategy. However, extensive use of weedicides burdens the environment and ultimately threatening human health, so natural ways of limiting weeds in the agriculture fields become the top priority. Another important yield limiting factor is the non-availability of macronutrients, compelling formers to use artificial fertilizers. The present research was conducted to analyze the herbicidal effects of fungal endophytes isolated from wheat plants against Ranunculus muricatus, Avena fatua and Rumex dentatus; the most common weeds in wheat fields. Also, their potential to promote wheat growth was assessed. So our strategy was ‘two birds with one stone”. For this purpose, fungal endophytes were isolated from wheat on hagem media and sub cultured on PDA. The culture filtrates and biomass of these were collected in Czapek medium. Experiments were performed with completely randomized design using fungal culture filtrate and fungal biomass as treatments. The results showed that the endophytic fungi had significant weedicide effects on the selected weeds reducing seed germination and seedling growth parameters. The most effective weedicide effect was shown by the strain GW and WT against Rumex dentatus. Similarly GW and WT were effective against Ranunculus muricatus; BR and BK were effective against Avena fatua. The endophytes effectively colonize in weeds and induced stress by enhancing ROS accumulation. Contrary to their inhibitory nature in weeds, wheat growth was promoted by the selected isolates. Our result demonstrated that the selected endophytic fungi isolated from wheat could be an impressive method for controlling weeds and also be used as bio fertilizers.
Keywords: Avena fatua, Flavonoids, Phenols, Phytohormones and ROS
