Effects of commercial and wild mycorrhiza on aboveground and belowground biomass ratio in Bromus inermis and Elymus canadensis

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to elucidate how wild and commercial mycorrhizal fungi effect the growth habits of Bromus inermis and Elymus canadensis. The species of plants that were used were Elymus canadensis and Bromus inermis.This experiment is setup so that we will have four different test groups. Test group 1 is Commercial mycorrhizal inoculum present, non-sterilized prairie soil. Test group 2 is Commercial mycorrhizal inoculum present, sterilized prairie soil. Test group 3 is Commercial mycorrhizal inoculum absent, non-sterilized prairie soil. Test group 4 is Commercial mycorrhizal inoculum absent, sterilized prairie soil.Each week during lab measurements were taken to track the progress of the experiment. We measured height of the shoot and number of live / dead plants. At the end of the experiment we measured below and above ground biomass. A 3 way anova will be performed using SPSS software. We did not find any significant differences (p = 0.05) between the shoot and root ratio of any of the treatment groups, between the mean height of the tallest leaf of any of the treatment groups, nor between the mean height of the tallest leaf when the two species were compared. We concluded that our hypothesis was not supported by our research but through more advanced and precise study meaningful evidence could be determined about the effects of these fungi on plants. However, our experiment added to the already formed idea that prairie grasses are some of the least affected, if not negatively affected, by mycorrhizae fungi inoculation.