PUSA – VAM Technology
Background:
Next to Nitrogen, Phosphorus is an essential nutrient determining plants’ growth and productivity. Due to soil fixation of P, its availability in soil is rarely sufficient for optimum growth and development of plants. P deficiency in soil is another reason why plant show stunted growth.
Soils with acidity, alkalinity and Zn or Boron deficiency also do not support plant growth. One of the factors that allow plants to grow on poor soils is their association with vesicular arbuscular-mycorrhizal (VAM) that enable uptake of immobile phosphorus and other nutrients. These fungi help mobilize P–nutrient from far away niches through their mycelial networks, thereby offsetting the negative influence of P-deficiency in the root rhizosphere.
Technology Details:
Owing to its high reactivity with almost anything which it contacts, phosphorus has a lower mobility than any other nutrient. VAM is an obligate fungus which colonizes the roots and spreads its hypha in the rhizosphere and beyond. Through this network of mycelia and hypha, the fungus is able to mobilize the P and bring it to the proximity of the growing roots enabling for better uptake. VAM can be mass multiplied using live roots. The microbe has an inherent capability to enhance the growth of the plants by many mechanisms, including mobilization of P and other nutrients. This biofertilizer has been tested and evaluated in many crops under field conditions and has been found to improve the crop growth as well as P- nutrition