A Review on Exploring the Weed Suppressing Characteristics of Arbuscular mycorrhizal Fungi for Enhanced Plant Yield and Productivity

Abstract

Weeds are plants, grown out of place, which compete with major crop plants for food, space and light, etc. Various physical, cultural, biological and chemical methods have been used for weed control but they have not been successful mainly, due to increased cost, labour and time. The application of herbicides for weed control has proven helpful but cannot be applied in case of organic farming, which is chemical-free-farming system. Biocontrol methods, utilizing biological organisms, have the potential to control weeds growth to a large extent with limited cost but it has not been well explored. In this method, soil microbes, such as rhizobacteria, pathogenic fungi and root symbiotic fungi, i.e., Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi have not been widely used. Several studies have shown that AM fungi can inhibit weed growth and proliferation, though the exact mechanism as to how they interact with weed is not known. Reduced seed germination of weeds in the presence of exudates secreted by AM colonized plant roots, changes in relative abundance of mycotrophic (AM host) and non-mycotrophic (non-AM host) weeds species and reduction in weed biomass in response to AM fungi are a few mechanisms reported by various studies till date. The interaction of AM fungi with weeds is not always detrimental but can confer several advantages as discussed in this article. This review article highlights the potential of AM fungi in suppressing weeds growth and intensifies the need to study this mechanism at molecular level to efficiently employ it as weed control method.