Benefits of Mycorrhizal Fungi

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

In agriculture we often associate fungi with plant pathogens trying to harm crops, but there are a lot of species of soil-dwelling mycorrhizal fungi that are very beneficial to crop health. Biologist Dr. Toby Kiers believes there is a lot of potential in studying how to make the most of plant-fungi interactions.

Kiers... "Even things like crops make a huge difference. We did some work looking at wild plants versus highly bred crops, and what we found was that in the data sets was that crops allocate about half of the amount of carbon to migratory fungi. Then wild plants do so already. Even just that key lever of it matters what crops you plant in terms of how much they're gonna allocate to these fungi."

Reducing soil erosion and boosting overall plant health are also added benefits, Kiers says.

Kiers... "To me, when I see a soil that is bare, it's, it's almost heartbreaking because it just means that not only are we gonna have lots of erosion and soil loss, but those micro-isole networks have no plant partner. I mean, what you have to understand about Arbuscular micro-Isole fungi is, this is a big word, but they're called obligate biotrophs, which means they depend on plants for all of their carbon, all of their growth. And so they're very helpful for plants in so many different ways. Man, we didn't even cover all the ways that these fungi can help."

That’s evolutionary biologist, Dr. Toby Kiers.