Native fungal microorganisms enhance important agronomic traits in barley by
![Thumbnail](/themes/Mirage2/images/white_rectangle.jpeg)
File Type:
PDFItem Type:
Journal ArticleDate:
2015Access:
openAccessCitation:
Trevor R. Hodkinson, Brian R. Murphy, 'Native fungal microorganisms enhance important agronomic traits in barley by', Graduate Students’ Union of the University of Dublin, Trinity College, Journal of Postgraduate Research;14, 2015Download Item:
Abstract:
Successfully addressing the challenge of providing future food security will require
both improvements in crop yield as well as the cultivation of additional farmland.
This may result in the steady increase of farming on marginal, arid, and semiarid
lands, especially in the developing world, leading in turn to greater biotic
and abiotic stresses on crops. To enable crops to deal with these stresses, an evergrowing
arsenal of chemicals will be needed to maintain acceptable yields, with
consequent environmental damage and maybe even the loss of biodiversity. Any
means of reducing these chemical crop inputs would be welcome, and a class of
microorganisms called endophytes may provide part of the solution. We have isolated
fungal endophyte strains from wild populations of Irish plants and carried out a
number of experiments which assessed the effect of inoculating these endophytes
onto barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in a variety of stressful growing conditions. We have
found that the endophytes induced improvements in important agronomic traits in
nearly every situation, including 29% and 70% increases in grain yield and shoot
biomass respectively in nutrient-stressed barley; 100% suppression of seed-borne
barley diseases; 50% increase in both the number of shoots and grain yield in droughtstressed
barley; and finally, a 600% increase in plant survival in multiply-stressed
barley. These results suggest that the endophyte strains that we have isolated could
provide the basis for the development of a commercially-viable biotechnological
means of reducing chemical crop inputs, and we are currently working on such a
project with industry partners.
Author: Hodkinson, Trevor R.; Murphy, Brian R.
Publisher:
Graduate Students’ Union of the University of Dublin, Trinity CollegeType of material:
Journal ArticleCollections
Series/Report no:
Journal of Postgraduate Research;14Availability:
Full text availableKeywords:
Biofertilisation, Biocontrol, Agriculture, Endophytes, BarleyISSN:
2009-4787Metadata
Show full item recordLicences: