Abstract

Mycorrhizal fungi are species of Glomalean fungi that intimately associated with plant roots forming a symbiotic relationship, with plant providing sugars for the fungi and the fungi providing nutrients such as P, Zn, Cu etc. to the plant, protection from drought stress conditions, toxic effect of heavy metals and infection of some soil born diseases with increased plant growth. Further, this association enhances the formation of stable soil aggregates that improves the stability of soil structure especially under course grain soil condition and restricts soil erosion. The mycorrhizal fungi also offer a great potential for sustainable agriculture. The production of mycorrhizal fungal inocula is laborious and cost-consuming due to its obligate biotrophic nature. Spores of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in soil can be collected by wet sieving and decanting method and pure culture of mycorrhizal fungi produced either by Soil Trap Culture or Single Spore methods. Thereafter spores were characterized on the basis of their shape, size, colours and hyphal attachment and classified on the basis of their morphology. Each genus of mycorrhizal fungi has specific cell wall characters that may be used for identification.