Plant growth response to wild and commercial mycorrhizae

Abstract

The reason behind our experiment was to test the symbiotic relationship of plants and mycorrhizae. We were aiming to see if the plants growth rate and biomass were affected with commercial or native to the soil mycorrhizae. We tested two plant species, Ratibida columnifera and Helianthus annuus, in four different soil mixtures, living soil with inoculum, living without inoculum, sterile soil with inoculum and sterile soil without inoculum. The results showed that based on the soil type there was a significant difference in the above and below ground plant biomass but the inclusion of commercial inoculum did not show drastic affects in growth or biomass when compared to the wild mycorrhizae. Based on our results we cannot say that our hypothesis was supported due to the similar averages of growth rates between both commercial and wild mycorrhizae.