Induction of chlamydospores to enhance the shelf-life in Trichoderma asperellum using phosphorus deficient medium

Abstract

Soil has biologically complex environment, where immense group of microbes habituating especially fungal and bacterial microorganisms and these soil microbes have ability to transform complex compounds into simpler that enter again the ecosystem as well as they also mobilize, biotransformation and bioaccumulation processes of nutrients, micronutrient and heavy metals in the soil (Gadd 1993). Morphological behaviour and activity of the microbes highly influenced by the environmental factors and nutrient stress such as drought, heat, salinity, cold, can have a devastating impact on microbial activities as well as on plant growth and crop yield (Suzuki et al. 2014). Multiple tip-formations near the hyphal apex in filamentous fungi especially in Aspergillus nidulans and Neurospora crassa due to environmental and nutritional stress and this phenomenon happened due to disturbance of the process of tip extension and such aberration might be potential benefits in increasing the number of exploratory branches emanating from a mycelium to tackle risk of the environmental factors (Markham 1992). Phosphorus is an important growth-limiting nutrient and a large portion of inorganic phosphates (P) applied to soil in the form of fertilizer by the farmers which is rapidly immobilized after application, nearly >80% of P becomes immobile and unavailable for plant uptake because of adsorption, precipitation or conversion to organic form (Holford 1997).