Piriformospora indica, a cultivable root colonizing endophytic fungus of Sebacinales, promotes plant growth and confers resistance against biotic and abiotic stress. The fungus has also the ability to colonize the roots of many varieties of plant species. The goal of present study was to clarify the colonization ability of P.indica in artichoke roots and the respond of plant to water stress. Re...

[1] An accurate description of plant ecology requires an understanding of the interplay between precipitation, infiltration, and evapotranspiration. A simple model for soil moisture dynamics, which does not resolve spatial variations in saturation, facilitates analytical expressions of soil and plant behavior as functions of climate, soil, and vegetation characteristics. Proper application of s...

Plant growth promotion by rhizobacteria is a known phenomenon but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We searched for plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria that are naturally associated with Arabidopsis thaliana to investigate the molecular mechanisms that are involved in plant growth-promotion. We isolated a Pseudomonas bacterium (Pseudomonas sp. G62) from roots of field-grown Arab...

The role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on cadmium (Cd) accumulation and on the possible attenuation of Cd stress was studied in maize plants (Zea mays L. var. Exceller). Plants inoculated or not with Glomus macrocarpum were exposed to Cd (0-20 μmol L-1), at two P levels (5 and 10 mg L-1) in the nutrient solution. The experiment was conducted in a hydroponic system, using a randomized 2 ...

Roots of Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings grown in the laboratory using the traditional plant-growing culture system (TPG) were covered to maintain them in darkness. This new method is based on a dark chamber and is named the improved plant-growing method (IPG). We measured the light conditions in dark chambers, and found that the highest light intensity was dramatically reduced deeper in the dar...

Control of respiration has largely been studied with growing and/or photosynthetic tissues or organs, but has rarely been examined in harvested and stored plant products. As nongrowing, heterotrophic organs that are reliant on respiration to provide all of their metabolic needs, harvested plant products differ dramatically in their metabolism and respiratory needs from growing and photosyntheti...

Trichoderma spp. are versatile opportunistic plant symbionts which can colonize the apoplast of plant roots. Microarrays analysis of Arabidopsis thaliana roots inoculated with Trichoderma asperelloides T203, coupled with qPCR analysis of 137 stress responsive genes and transcription factors, revealed wide gene transcript reprogramming, proceeded by a transient repression of the plant immune res...