Response of Mango Seedlings to VA-Mycorrhizal Inoculation

Accepted : June, 2009 Mango is one of the most popular fruit crops grown in tropical and subtropical countries. It is considered as ‘National fruit of India’ and is rightly called as ‘king of fruits’ due to unique taste, flavour and is popular within all sections of society. Mango is cultivated vegetatively by adopting several techniques like inarching, budding, stone grafting but veneer grafting is adopted in large scale for maximum growth and yield. Whatever method of grafting is followed, the seedling stocks have to be healthy and vigorous and should have desirable height and thickness. VAmycorrhizal fungi improve uptake of phosphorus and other micronutrients. The mycorrhizal fungus is a specialized member of rhizosphere or root region microorganisms. Mycorrhizal plants contain higher concentration of P in their tissues than control (Harvey and Smith, 1982). Increase in uptake of other nutrient elements such as zinc, sulphur and copper have also been reported as influenced by VAM inoculation (Hayman, 1982). Hence, an experiment was conducted on mango seedling to observe the effect of inoculation of Vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizae (VAM) viz., Glomus epigaeum, Glomus mosseae and Gigaspora calospora and their combinations on growth and root colonization of mango seedlings.