Arbuscular mycorrhizal association and growth response of Faidherbia albida (Del.) A. Chev. as influenced by land use type in Northern Ethiopia

The distribution and density of mycorrhizal fungi are highly influenced by the type of vegetation and land use types. This study was carried out to study Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) fungi status of Faidherbia albida trees grown at three different land use types (area exclosure, grazing and cultivated lands). Soil and live fine roots were collected from the rhizosphere soils of F. albida trees. AM root colonization percentage were determined using the grid line intersect method. Spores were extracted from 100g of air-dried sub-samples by wet sieving and decanting method. Pot experiment was set up in a greenhouse using completely randomized design with four treatments and replicated three times. There was a significant difference on AM colonization among F. albida tree roots grown on different land use types (P<0.0086). Colonization of F. albida roots were higher in area exclosure (71.1%) followed by grazing land (66.5%) and cultivated land (66.1%). Similarly, spore abundance count was significantly higher (P<0.0014) in area exclosure (3041 100g-1 of dry soil), followed by cultivated land (2002 per 100g-1 of dry soil) and grazing land (1364 100g-1 of dry soil). Soil samples collected from cultivated land showed higher number of spores with low AM colonization compared with grazing lands, which implies low level of infective AM populations in cultivated lands. Glomus was the dominant genus identified in all land use types. AM inoculated F. albida seedlings showed significant growth enhancement compared to the control treatments (P<0.05). Growth enhancements of seedlings inoculated with AM fungal inoculums collected from area exclosure was, however, higher than those collected from grazing land and cultivated land. This emphasis the importance of native soil AM potentials in area exclosure and grazing land for better combinations of F. albida seedlings with AM fungi species to achieve optimum plant growth improvement and rehabilitation of degraded lands.

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