Effects of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) Inoculation on Proximate Analysis of Chickpea Varieties

Abstract

A pot experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculation on different varieties of Cicer arietinum L. (Chana Punjab 2008, Chana Dasht and Chana bakar 2011). The experiment was carried out in completely randomized block design (RCBD) with AMF treatments and replications three times repeated under natural condition during Rabi season 2014-2015 at Department of Botany Bacha Khan University Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan. The pots were filled with processed soil and each pot having 4Kg of phosphorus deficient soil (1.43 mg kg-1). Size of each pot (23cm x 19.5cm). Some pots were inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and twenty seeds of chickpea were sown in each pot. The results show that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculation significantly increased proximate composition in Chickpea verities as compared to non-inoculated plants. Inoculated plants performed better when compared with control plants. Similarly it is also proved that Chickpea verities are more dependent on mycorrhizal inoculation under P-deficient condition for better survival.