Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Improve Growth, Photosynthetic Activity, and Chlorophyll Fluorescence of Vitis vinifera L. cv. Ecolly under Drought Stress

Abstract

Drought stress has become a limiting factor for viticulture with climate change. The influence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on grapevine Vitis vinifera L. cv. Ecolly’s leaf water content, chlorophyll concentration, photosynthesis activity, and chlorophyll fluorescence under drought stress was studied in the greenhouse. The experiment was designed as a randomized complete block with four treatments: AMF colonization, well-watered; non-AMF colonization, well-watered; AMF colonization with drought stress; and non-AMF colonization with drought stress. The grapevines inoculated with mycorrhiza had a higher water content in the leaves and higher chlorophyll concentration under drought stress than those without mycorrhiza inoculation. AMF colonization increased the dry biomass of shoots and roots, photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, and transpiration rate and decreased intercellular CO2 concentration. Mycorrhizal grapevines had higher non-photochemistry efficiency, higher photochemistry efficiency, and higher actual quantum yield than non-mycorrhizal grapevines. The results show that AMF alleviated the negative effects of drought stress on grapevines. The alleviation improved leaf water status, chlorophyll concentration, and photosynthetic capacity. Altogether, the results of our study indicate that AMF inoculation has the potential to protect grapevines under drought stress.

Physiological and Enzymatic Antioxidant Responses of Solanum tuberosum Leaves to Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal Inoculation under Water Stress

“…Moreover, regarding water stress and inoculation with AMF, in trifoliate orange plants, AMF significantly increased the contents of photosynthetic pigments when water stress was applied to the soil compared to non-inoculated plants [ 44 ]. Similar results were observed in Vitis vinifera L. plants, which showed a significant increase in the contents of photosynthetic pigments due to the combination of AMF inoculation and water stress [ 33 ]. Regarding the carotenoid concentrations, for the VR808 genotype, the concentration levels tended to decrease by 86.8% and 84.4% in the NM and MIX treatments, respectively, under the S2 drought level compared to those in the same inoculation treatment without stress (S0).…”

“…In other potato varieties, gs also decreases when water stress is more severe [ 29 ]. Regarding the role of AMF symbiosis, in Terminalia arjuna plants inoculated with AMF, a decrease in gs was reported when water stress was applied [ 32 ], although the opposite effect has also been shown in Vitis vinifera leaves [ 33 ]. In Solanum lycopersicum plants subjected to mild and moderate drought stress, gs decreases significantly with respect to that of the control [ 34 ].…”

Deep nutrients and soil fungal communities support tomato fruit yield and quality in dry farm management systems

“…A commercial AMF inoculant (Valent MycoApply Ultrafine Endo; a four species mix of Rhizophagus irregularis, Glomus mosseae, Glomus aggregatum, and Glomus etunicatum) was used to inoculate transplants. This inoculum has been shown to impact crop physiology and improve plant water status in various field and greenhouse applications (Heuvel et al 2020, Bernaola and Stout 2021, Torres et al 2021, Ye et al 2022. In order to be minimally disruptive to farm operations, inoculations were performed after plants were in the ground and within three days of transplanting.…”

Effect of AM fungi during salt stress on biochemical content in Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.)

“…Inoculation of plants with AM fungi activates different enzymatic activities, including Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) and rubisco, which enhances the rate of photosynthesis (Kaddes et al 2019). These findings are contested with the various other plants such as maize (Rahmaty and Khara 2011), Ocimum (Heidari 2012), Barley (Meddich et al 2021) and grapes (Ye et al 2022).…”