In the fall of 2012 my wife and I were planting trees , rafts of trees . If you were living in Central Virginia at the time , you may recall we had had a little wind storm the previous June . in reality , this was no little storm ! It was the first time I had ever find out the wordderecho . As a termination of this unusual storm , we lost many trees , so the following autumn , we began the task of replanting .
We were planting our first replacement , a native dogwood , and I noticed my married woman sprinkling a hoar powdery centre on the root ball and in the muddle . Hmmm . I just had to ask , “ What ’s that stuff you ’re adding ? ” Well , I get that familiar stare , and then she replied , “ Mycorrhizae . ” Well , I needed a lilliputian more entropy about this mystery substance . “ Mircorissen what ? ” I asked . And after being married for some forty unexpended year , I get the standard answer . “ Yep , mycorrhizae and it ’s pronounced : my - kuh - ri - zee . ”
“ Okay , ” I responded , “ what is that mycorrhizae stuff you are dump in the hole ? ” With a flavor of unbelief , she reply , “ Mycorrhizae is derived from two Grecian words , Mykosmeaning fungus andRizameaning root . ” perchance I should n’t have asked . I started shake up my header in disbelief , and before I could close my mouth , it just pluck out — “ Well , that ’s just fantastic — you ’re infect our unexampled tree diagram with a root fungus . That ’s just majuscule ! At least it will be easy stab when we replace the dead Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . What are you think ? ” I really was n’t interested in her imagine process at that moment , but I wanted to drop in a little shot . She slowly react , “ Last week I was reading about the benefit of mycorrhizae to trees . Perhaps you should do a short research and cease complain . ” Well , I figure she was correct . I needed to do a little inquiry before we continue to kill the new trees we were planting !
Well , by now I know you are inquire what this has stimulate to do with the comestible garden , and I prognosticate we ’ll get to that in just a bit . But first I needed to do a trivial fungi enquiry before my wife killed all our novel trees — all 28 of them .
As it turns out , mycorrhizal fungi have been around for about400 million yearsand they are native to most soils . However , the concept of mycorrhizal fungi is a fair recent notion . In 1881 a Polish mycologist , Franciszek Kamienskidescribed an association between a fungus and the roots of a flora . In 1885,A.B. Frank , a German botanist , was commissioned by the King of Prussia to discover if truffle production could be increased . He never succeeded in his mission , but described root structures on Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree closely associated with truffle . Mr. Frankhypothesizedthat there was a mutually good relationship — called a symbiotic relationship — in which a fungus and host works rely on each other : the fungus extract nutrients from the dirt and transmit them to the host plant ; the host plant in turn nourishes the fungus . Frank is given the cite for strike the termmycorrhiza(this is the singular ; the plural is mycorrhizae),meaning fungus tooth root . Back in the 1880 ’s the concept that a fungus could be good for a industrial plant was a rotatory estimation and flew in the case of the conventional thinking at the time . I must admit on that sidereal day when my bride was adding fungus kingdom to our new dogwood tree diagram , I too did a small heading scratching .
As it turns out , after 130 years and thousands of research newspaper , mycorrhiza has become an accept scientific concept , and the symbiotic relationships between fungus and roots have been exploit for applications in farming . This interaction results in a recognizable fungous structure — cannular filaments — on or within the ancestor , and today it is calculate theapproximately 90%of all vascular plant life hold out in some connexion or symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizal fungus .
Mycorrhizal fungi are mostly classified intotwo superior general typesbased on the position of the screw thread - like filaments of the fungus : ectomycorrhiza and endomycorrhiza . ( Brady & Weil )
Ectomycorrhiza(Ecto = remote ) group let in hundred of different fungal specie associate with trees and shrubs such as pine , birch , poison hemlock , beech tree and oak . The fungi spring up around and between the source cell , the fungus does n’t in reality penetrate the origin cells . The fungus also forms a considerable mass in the soil surround the flora roots . The fruiting , or generative , body of these fungus are sometimes visible , and we recognize them asmushrooms ! Ectomycorrhiza are commonly tie in with woods trees , pasture theatre , lawns , and open timber and in places next to water . They are host specific , have many species and can disperse far and chop-chop . ( Brady & Weil )
Endomycorrhia , ( Endo = in spite of appearance ) , the most authoritative and most widespread of the endomycorrhia group are calledarbuscularmycorrhizae ( AM ) . These fungi in reality repose inside the cell of the flora antecedent . Once inside the root cell , they form small , highly - ramify structure call arbuscules . These structures serve well to transfer mineral nutrients from the fungi to the host plants and sugars from the plant to the fungus . The fungus also form a considerable passel of hypha in the soil surrounding the plant roots . This mass of hyphae is often referred to as themycelia.(Brady & Weil )
Root haircloth soak up flora food dissolved in soil water , often called thesoil solution . However , there are some essential nutrients such as atomic number 15 , zinc and Cu that have limited mobility in the filth solution and are often unavailable to the root hairs . AM fungi function as an extension of a plant ’s root system . In improver to grow within the root , much of the organic structure of the fungus calledhyphaeis in the soil . These filamentous structures of the fungus give the root more “ surface area ” and are more in force than steady down tomentum at exploring the soil for nutrients such as atomic number 15 , copper and atomic number 30 . The fungus picks up these nutrients and transmit them back to the root where they are loose by the arbuscules and can be used by the plant life . merely put , mycorrhizae extend the industrial plant ’s range , allowing it to get more than it needs to survive , make the industrial plant stronger , peculiarly during drought periods . A stronger individual plant also think the community of plants is more springy to psychological disorder . ( Plaster )
Most native flora and agrarian crop that have the capacity to take form mycorrhizal associations perform poorly in unfertile dirt , peculiarly soil with low daystar level and the absence of mycorrhizal kingdom Fungi . Many plants in the Legume family line are peculiarly dependent on mycorrhizal relationship , not only to incur sufficient phosphorus and other nutrients , but also to raise their N - make mutualism with the rhizobia bacteria .
As always in the plant human beings , there are exceptions to the formula : two plant groups that donotform mycorrhizae are the Cruciferae folk ( mustards , cabbage , rapeseed ) and the Chenopodiaceae family ( beet and spinach ) . The comportment of AM fungus are most important where stain are downhearted in nutrients , particularly daystar . ( Brady & Weil )
Mycorrhizal fungi incur carbohydrates ( simple dough ) from the host plant life . It is estimated that plants “ infected ” by mycorrhiazae shunt about 15 percent of clams produced by their foliage to their mycorrhizal symbiont . In return the host plant derive a bit of welfare :
Today the good properties of mycorrhizae have been exploited for program in agriculture , forestry , horticulture , declamation and biocontrol .
In gain to gain nutrients and water supply for plants , mycorrhizae caninfect and connectneighboring plants , let nutrients and transfers between the two plants . Even plants of different mintage may be connected through hyphae bridges or the mycelium web between the roots of different plants . An example is theIndian Pipewildflower ( Monotropa uniflora ) , which is unable to obtain food through photosynthesis ; alternatively , its roots are taint by a mycorrhizae from a nearby tree diagram and the tree diagram feed the fungus , which in bend transfers some of the sugar to the Amerindic pipe . ( adhesive plaster )
In addition to these benefits , newresearchis surfacing to advise that the mycelium connection of a myccorhizae may be viewed as a “ biological net ” and that plants are able-bodied to exchange entropy using the mycorrhizae connection . Oneresearchproject performed on broad beans supports this notion .
When a pest damages a broad bonce plant , the level of plant “ volatile ” ( methyl salicylate ) is increase . The volatiles act not only to repel pestilence but also to draw enemies such as parasitoids . Increased levels of volatiles were not only observed in a plant under attack from aphids , but also higher volatiles were measured in theunattacked plant unite to the mycorrhizae web of the works being attacked . No increase level of volatiles were note in adjacent plants that were not connect to the “ biologic cyberspace . ” The field concluded that the aphid - assail flora was direct out a message about the attack via the mycorrhizae web to the other plant on the web .
Several age ago I was bring a territory division at the local community college and the prof remarked that the accent in soil science was changing from soil chemistry to soil biology . Well , my mycorrhizae journey may have just reaffirmed his instruction . And as for my bride , well , she may already have made that modulation from chemical substance to biology .
Thanks for stopping by The Garden Shed and we hope to see you again next month when we go into point on how mycorrhizal kingdom Fungi agree into the constitutive vegetable garden , its upshot on single vegetables , and how to maintain a healthy mycorrhizae universe .
reference :
The Nature and Properties of Soils,(Brady & Weil , fourteenth ed.rev . 2008 ) , pp.472 - 475 .
Soil Science & Management(Plaster , E. , 2009 ) , pp . 109 - 117 .
Remy , Winfried , Thomas , Taylor N. , Hass , H. , & Kerp , Hans , Plant Biology , “ Four Hundred - Million class - old Vesicular Arbuscular , Mycorrhizae ” , Vol . 91 , pp , 11841 - 11843 , December , 1994
“ Hidden Partners : Mycorrhizae Fungi and Plants , ” The New York Botanical Garden , http://sciweb.nybg.org / science2 / hcol / mycorrhizae.asp.html
“ mutualism : Mycorrhizae and Lichens , ” Department of Botany , University of Hawaii at Manoahttp://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/wong/BOT135/Lect26.htm
“ Life Cycle , Significance and Structures of Arbuscular Mycorrhizae”http://www.zor.zut.edu.pl / Glomeromycota / Life cycle , significance and properties of AM.html(Blaszkowski , James , University of Szczecin )
Encyclopedia of Plant Pathology , “ Mycorrhizae,”(Vol . II , 2001),http://pnwhandbooks.org / plantdisease / node/1805 / print
Trappe , J , M. , US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health , “ Mycorrhizae ” , 2005 , June : 15 ( 4 ) 277 - 81 Epub 2004 Oct. 19 PMID 15503185http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15503185
Babikova , Z. , Gillbert , L. , Bruce , T. , Burkett , M. , Caulfield , J. , Woodcock , C. , Pickett , J. , Johnson , D. , Ecology Letters , “ Underground signaling carried through coarse mycelium connection warn neighboring plant life of aphid attack”,http://scholar.harvard.edu / files / cmhart / files/2013_media_messaging_-_all_papers_merged.pdf
