Mycorrhizal technology
Say ‘no’ to soil pollutants
Looks can surely be deceptive. For, who could say by looking at this microscopic fungus that it is potent enough to revive a wasteland and turn it into – take your pick – a lush, flowering garden, a fruit orchard or even a verdant field? Yet, on the other hand, seeing is believing. As this fungus fuses life into earth, sick soil turns fertile and returns to health that was long lost to generous doses of heavy chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Finally, a real ‘fertilizer’
After years of labour, TERI’s Centre for Mycorrhizal Research achieved
a technological breakthrough—masscultivation of a consortium of mycorrhizae
on a semisynthetic medium under sterile environments.
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| Technology formulations: tablets and powder |
Capable of relieving agriculturalists of their woes, arbuscular mycorrhizae are a group of the most common symbiotic fungi and represent a permanent association with roots of plants.
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| Consortium production |
The only known fungal system categorized as a biofertilizer, mycorrhizae provide plant roots with extended arms that help them tap soil nutrients that are otherwise beyond their reach. For plants, this means better uptake of phosphorus, more nitrogen, and greater availability of other micronutrients—all different ways of fighting tough physical conditions, enriching soil, increasing health, and decreasing dependence on chemical fertilizers.
When the fields are consumed…
The cycle is vicious—though mycorrhizae are naturally occurring fungi
found in most soil types or ecosystems, excessive and incessant use of chemical
fertilizers, insecticides, etc., has had an adverse effect on this unique group
of organisms. Unregulated use of chemicals, over the years, has reduced the
natural regeneration ability of soil and degraded its structure, the environment,
and, therefore, food quality. As a result, agriculture-intensive economies suffer
from polluted soils and wastelands amidst an ever-increasing demand for food
production.
Microbes, saviours in action
Mycorrhizae, on the other hand, use phosphorus from extremely low concentrations
and provide a nature-friendly alternative to chemical fertilizers. TERI’s
mycorrhizal consortium is a technological innovation with multiple organisms
as against its earlier version that contained a single species. The consortium
technology offers improved and multifaceted benefits in plant production systems.
A product of this type bypasses the limitations of the conventional method and
allows storage at room temperature for more than five years.
TERI ’s mycorrhizal organic fertilizers offer sustainable and environment-friendly
solutions to almost all cultivated plants and crops by
enhancing nutrition and yields
up to 5%–25%, and
curtailing chemical fertilizer
inputs by 50%.
India has about 114 million hectares of land under cultivation and is also the second most populous country in the world. To meet its ever-rising demand for food, the dual measures of increasing land area under cultivation and improving productivity per square kilometre will have to be taken. This means that close to 55 million hectares of wasteland or fallow land will have to be brought under cultivation. Mycorrhizal technology can not only reclaim wastelands but also enrich soil with phosphorus, making the whole exercise a showcase in sustainability.
Beneficiaries
The biofertilizer is available to end-users – entrepreneurs, commercial
growers, farmers, and companies – at competitive prices. A couple of companies
in India (Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd and KCP Sugars and Industries) have initiated
commercial production of the biofertilizer. Some European and American industries
too have shown keen interest in adopting this technology.
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Useful for many kinds of vegetables, fruits, pulses, plantations, fodder crops, etc., mycorrhiza has proven, through field trials conducted by TERI, that fly ash dumps and mined-out areas and sites affected by industrial effluents, oil sludge, and chlor alkali sludge can be reclaimed for vegetation. Affected sites around the Badarpur Thermal Power Station in Delhi, the Korba Super Thermal Power Station in Chhattisgarh, and the Vijayawada State Thermal Power Station in Andhra Pradesh have been completely restored. Only this technology provides a sustainable, economical, and healthy answer to clearing the approximately 30 000 hectares of land under fly ash in India. The results are an eye-opener.
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| Mycorrhiza applied to soyabean cultivation gave 30% more yield with a reduction of 25% reduction in fertilizer application |
Applications/benefits
Implementation of T ERI’s mycorrhizal technology requires an investment
of 6.4 million rupees – which includes the capital cost, licence fee,
consumables, and annual labour costs for production in the order of 200-tonne
capacity in the first year – compared to an investment of 444.2 million
rupees for conventional technological solutions. Recurring costs are much less
in the TERI technology than that of in the conventional technology. Also, energy
inputs in the TERI technology are a mere 5% and water requirements a minute
fraction – 0.0003% – of the conventional technology.
Of the annual demand for approximately 48 million tonnes of phosphatic fertilizers for agriculture in India, only 33.48 million tonnes is procured from domestic chemical fertilizer industries. The deficit (14.5 million tonnes) is imported from other countries. This situation can be overcome in a cost-effective and eco-friendly manner with the large-scale adoption of mycorrhizae.
TERI offers the technology to mass-produce viable, healthy, genetically pure, and high-quality fungal propagules without any pathogenic contamination under in vitro sterile environment. T ERI’s biofertilizer thus holds the promise of a green future.