Mycorrhizal Fungi

There is a very interesting and easily read book for the layman on soil microbiology,
which has been only recently published called Tales from the Underground by
David W. Wolfe fromCornell University USA. It is published by Perseus Publishing
Cambridge Massachusetts. Wolfe talks, among other things, a lot about soil bacteria
and soil fungi and he describes the amazing connections between the bacterial and
fungal life in the soil and plants. In particular the connections of the rhizobia bacteria
(those are the bacteria that are responsible for the formation of nitrogen nodulation of
the legume plants) and also the various mycorrhizal fungi which attach themselves to
the roots of many plants in a symbiotic fashion. Mycorrhizal fungi form an
association, with various plants, by means of their fine hyphae attaching themselves to
the plant roots and seek out nutrients and moisture for the plant, in exchange for
carbohydrates that the plant synthesizes by photosynthesis.
I have been looking at the nitrogen nodules on legumes resulting from nitrogen fixing
bacteria, with the naked eye all my life and I am very familiar with the inoculation of
various rhizobiumspecies
needed
for
different
legumes. The rhizobia are host specific. Rhizobia needed for lucern are different
from those needed for say soya bean, vetch or cow pea.
But of the mycorrhizal fungi I knew very little about except they existed on and grew
around the roots of the pine trees, the silver birch and the oaks and aided their growth,
but I had no idea that apparently 90% of all plants right through the world have a
symbiotic relationship with the mycorrhizals. With an enlargement scope of 20X,
these hyphae can be seen in and around the roots of the host plant and right through
the particles of the surrounding soil. They are very fine and cobwebby looking, about
1 micron (finest merion or cashmere wool is 15-20 micron) and which penetrate the
particles of soil. Not surprisingly they look like strands of fungus
on mouldy bread. Incidentally these hyphae help bind the soil particles to form a
crumb
structure. Wolfe
points
out
that
the mycorrhizal fungi
unlike
the rhizobia bacteria are not always host specific and often spread from plant to plant
and species to species. The strands of their hyphae are interconnected and apparently
travel for very long distances seeking nutrients for the plants. Also often along with
various helpful bacteria, plants are able to get their nutrition a long way from their
root zone. A kind of food conveyor belt is in progress.
For instance, it is thus possible to have a symbiotic relationship between,
the rhizobium bacteria which fix nitrogen from the atmosphere via the nodules on the
roots of legumes, which are being grown between a crop of maize or sugar cane,
and mycorrhizal fungi whose hyphae helpfully pass on the nitrogen from the legume

to the roots of the crop. Apparently this is quite a comparatively recent discovery in
research into the world of the mycorrhizal fungi and only since the last 10 to 15 years.