I'm trying to find a way to isolate mycorrhizas from oil palm roots. As we all know, there are numerous other microbes in the soil, so is there any method to make sure that the isolation is directed at mycorrhizas selectively instead of isolating a mixture of mycorhizas and non-mycorrhizas? Please advice.
Dear Vikki, just collect the roots of oil palm. Set up trap culture with the roots using AMF free soils. After 2-3months examine the culture for spore production. I hope you may have isolates. Other microbes will not disturb the spore production. You can use any mycotropic plant as indicator plant e.g . maiz, sesbania, sorgum, trigonela. Maiz is the best. Dont forget to keep them free of contamination by external sources.
I would suggest using the same plant (palm) in the same soil (but sterilised) to trap mycorrhizas. Collecting spores is one way, but many AMF do not sporulate so you will not be collecting most of the AMF present. You can use the colonised root fragments as inoculum. It depends what is important, capturing the full diversity of AMF present or making sure you only collect pure AMF cultures representing only a fraction of the AMF present.
Yes. Prof. Philip, I support you. However, it may be little difficult to maintain oil palm tree as trap crop as it is a tree. Herbaceous plants are more convenient.
You can first try wet sieving of soil samples (rhizosphere) to collect spores. This is inexpensive and doesn't need longer times. If spores are not to be found, then using a host plant is the best way.
Dear Dr. Wong
You may check the attached papers on the subject.
Good luck.
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