Mycorrhizal Technology New Revised

AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY

Mycorrhizal technology Say ‘no’ to soil pollutants Looks can surely be deceptive. For, who could say by looking at this microscopic fungus that it is potent enough to revive a wasteland and turn it into – take your pick – a lush, flowering garden, a fruit orchard or even a verdant field? Yet, on the other hand, seeing is believing. As this fungus fuses life into earth, sick soil turns fertile and returns to health that was long lost to generous doses of heavy chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Finally, a real ‘fertilizer’ After years of labour, T E R I ’s Centre for Mycorrhizal Research achieved a technological breakthrough—masscultivation of a consortium of mycorrhizae on a semi-

occurring fungi found in most soil types or ecosystems, excessive and incessant use of chemical fertilizers, insecticides, etc., has had an adverse effect on this unique group of organisms. Unregulated use of chemicals, over the years, has reduced the natural regeneration ability of soil and degraded its structure, the environment, and, therefore, food quality. As a result, agriculture-intensive economies suffer from polluted soils and wastelands amidst an ever-increasing demand for food production.

Microbes, saviours in action Mycorrhizae, on the other hand, use phosphorus from extremely low concentrations and provide a naturefriendly alternative to chemical fertilizers. T E R I ’s mycorrhizal consortium is a technological innovation with multiple organisms as against its earlier version that contained a single species. The consortium technology offers improved and multi-faceted benefits in plant production systems. A product of this type bypasses the limitations of the conventional method and allows storage at room temperature for more than five years. T E R I ’s mycorrhizal organic fertilizers offer sustainable and environment-friendly solutions to almost all cultivated plants and crops by • enhancing nutrition and yields up to 5%–25%, and

Technology formulations: tablets and powder

synthetic medium under sterile environments. Capable of relieving agriculturalists of their woes, arbuscular mycorrhiza are a group of the most common symbiotic fungi and represent a permanent association with roots of plants. The only known fungal system categorized as a biofertilizer, mycorrhizae provide plant roots with extended arms that help them tap soil nutrients that are otherwise beyond their reach (Figure 1). For plants, this means better uptake of phosphorus, more nitrogen, and greater availability of other micronutrients—all different ways of fighting tough physical conditions, enriching soil, increasing health, and decreasing dependence on chemical fertilizers.

When the fields are consumed … The cycle is vicious—though mycorrhizae are naturally-

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T E R I ’s technologies for sustainable development

Figure 1 Consortium production

• curtailing chemical fertilizer inputs by 50%. India has about 114 million hectares of land under cultivation and is also the second most populous country in the world. To meet its everrising demand for food, the dual measures of increasing land area under cultivation and improving productivity per square kilometre will have to be taken. This means that close to 55 million hectares of wasteland or fallow land will have to be brought under cultivation. Mycorrhizal technology can not only reclaim wastelands but also enrich soil with phosphorus, making the whole exercise a showcase in sustainability.

Beneficiaries The biofertilizer is available to end-users – entrepreneurs, commercial growers, farmers, and companies – at competitive prices. A couple of companies in India (Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd and KCP Sugars and Industries) have initiated commercial production of the biofertilizer. Some European and American industries too have shown keen interest in adopting this technology. Useful for many kinds of vegetables, fruits,

My corr hiza biof er tilizer: a cure-all Mycorr corrhiza biofer ertilizer: T E R I ’s in vitro mycorrhiza biofertilizer is a multipurpose and multi-faceted product—it is a soil conditioner, bio-remediator, and bio-control agent and has wide applications in agriculture, plantations, horticulture, forestry, and biofuels. There is more—it has shown immense potential in reclamation of stressed ecosystems like fly ash dumps, sites loaded with alkali chlor sludge or distillery effluents, and other man-made wastelands.

pulses, plantations, fodder crops, etc., mycorrhiza has proven, through field trials conducted by T E R I , that fly ash dumps and mined-out areas and sites affected by industrial effluents, oil sludge, and chlor alkali sludge can be reclaimed for vegetation. Affected sites around the Badarpur Thermal Power Station in Delhi, the Korba Super Thermal Power Station in Chhattisgarh, and the Vijayawada State Thermal Power Station in Andhra Pradesh have been completely restored. Only this technology provides a sustainable, economical, and healthy answer to clearing the approximately 30 000 hectares of land under fly ash in India. The results are an eye-opener.

Mycorrhiza applied to soyabean cultivation gave 30% more yield with a 25% reduction in fertilizer application

Applications/benefits Implementation of TERI’s mycorrhizal technology requires an investment of 6.4 million rupees – which includes the capital cost, licence fee, consumables, and annual labour costs for production in the order of 200tonne capacity in the first year – compared to an investment of 444.2 million rupees for conventional technological solutions. Recurring costs are much less in the TERI technology than that of in the conventional technology. Also, energy inputs in the TERI technology are a mere 5% and water requirements a minute fraction – 0.0003% – of the conventional technology. Of the annual demand for approximately 48 million tonnes of phosphatic fertilizers for agriculture in India, only 33.48 million tonnes is procured from domestic chemical fertilizer industries. The deficit (14.5 million tonnes) is imported from other countries. This situation can be overcome in a cost-effective and eco-friendly manner with the large-scale adoption of mycorrhizae. TERI offers the technology to mass-produce viable, healthy, genetically pure, and high-quality fungal propagules without any pathogenic contamination under in vitro sterile environment. TERI’s biofertilizer thus holds the promise of a green future.

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