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’

Technology formulations: tablets and powder

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.

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. 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 (Figure 1). 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…

Figure 1 Consortium production

The cycle is vicious—though mycorrhizae are naturallyoccurring fungi found in most soil types or ecosystems, Technology formulations: tablets and powder Figure 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

Mycorrhiza applied to soyabean cultivation
gave 30% more yield with a 25% reduction in
fertilizer application

Mycorrhizae, on the other hand, use phosphorus from extremely low concentrations and provide a naturefriendly 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.

T E R I ’s mycorrhizal organic fertilizers offer sustainable and environment-friendly solutions to almost all cultivated plants and crops by

India has about 114 million hectares of land under cultivation and is also the second most populous country in the world. To meet its everrising 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.