Abstract:Coal mining provides a means for creating wealth and significantly contributes to export earnings, economic activity and employment whilst supporting regional development. However, coal mining is one of the most severe disturbances in terrestrial ecosystems. Thus, the removal of the natural vegetation and upper soil horizons for mining exploration hinders the establishment and survival of plant and soil microbial communities. Revegetation of ex-coal mined lands is therefore required to enable the recover, as close as possible, to its previous integrity. The establishment of tree species capable of protecting the underlying soil and its micro-fauna and flora is one way of achieving this aim. This study therefore aims to investigate the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizae fungi (AMF) pre-inoculation and compost application on the growth performance of the Africa red mahogany, Khaya anthoteca on an ex-coal mined site. The field design for this study was the completely randomized design (CRD) in factorial experiment. Four (4) levels of each factor namely compost and AMF were used with sixteen treatment combinations and each treatment replicated four times giving sixty four (64) experimental units. The results indicated that compost has significant effect (P<0.001) on height, diameter and leaf increment with steady increment during this study. There was no significant effect of mycorrhizae treatment as well as interaction between both factors (AMF and compost) on the growth of K. anthoteca. However, compost composition from a mixture of Salvinia natans and that prepared from the paddy husk (C3) recorded the highest increment in height of 9.31 cm while compost from S. natans only (C1), rice hull compost; herein known as paddy husk compost (C2) and control (C0) recorded increments of 9.00 cm, 5.78 cm and 4.47 cm respectively. The arbuscular mycorrhizae fungi played a role in the survival of the species on the field. There was percentage difference of between 18.5-37.5% over the control treatment. AMF from Glomus manihotis had the highest percentage survival of 81.25% whiles the control treatment of mycorrhizae had the lowest percentage of 43.75%. Plants are also able to withstand harsh environmental conditions through fungi-plant symbiosis enhancing the chances of survival on the field and thus, aiding the plant establishment. The study concludes that AMF and compost applications are feasible and sound technologies for the establishment of K. anthoteca on ex-coal mined sites.
Stem tip cuttings of Khaya anthoteca seedlings were experimented for the trapping of Arbuscular Mycorrhizae Fungi (AMF). This study aimed to determine the effect of hormone and wounding treatments on the vegetative propagation of K. anthoteca seedlings and the susceptibility of these cuttings to AMF soil inoculums infection compared to some other bait species such as Sorghum bicolor and Puereria javanica. The results indicated that, K. anthoteca can successfully be propagated through stem cutting with only wounding and without hormone (auxin) applications. Analysis of variance tested at 5% significance level revealed no differences between the treatment means of hormone and wounding on the number of roots. Again, the lengths of the longest roots were not significantly different over the control treatment. In the trapping experiment, there were no significant differences in terms of root segment colonization between K. anthoteca cuttings and the other trapping species. This observation was however, frequent in the young and meristematic segments of the roots for K. anthoteca. An average root colonization of 32% was observed for K. anthoteca and the highest recorded by S. bicolor of 43%. Thus, about a third of root segments of K. anthoteca were colonized by AMF. There was also a significant positive correlation between percentage root segment colonization and the number of counted spores. The study concludes that wounding of K. anthoteca six-month old seedlings prior to vegetative propagation by cutting play vital role with respect to the rooting ability of the propagules compared to non-wounded propagules and also not significantly different from that of synthetic hormone application. Again, K. anthoteca is susceptible to AMF just like most tropical plant species in Indonesia. Finally, AMF soil inoculums can also be a good source of inoculants for establishing K. anthoteca in areas of degraded lands for revegetation purposes.
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