Importance of cover crops in increasing the degree of mycorrhization of tomato and maize

Abstract

Beneficial microorganisms occur naturally in little-intervened ecosystems, but many practices associated with intensive agriculture result in biodiversity imbalances that disadvantage them relatively to other non-beneficial species. In these intensive systems, the occupation of the soil in the autumn-winter period with cover crops based on legumes, grasses, or biodiverse mixtures of both, will favor the enrichment of the soil in beneficial microorganisms, which will be available to interact with the main crop. The adoption of practices that favor mycorrhization can also play a very important role. It is known that certain species, such as annual ryegrass, mycorrhize very easily and their cultivation enriches the soil with autochthonous endomycorrhizal fungi, which can then be associated with subsequent crops. Thus, it was used microscopic methods in order to visualized endomicorrhizae structures and then, calculate the percentage of micorrization in the inner of radical tissue. with annual tye grass and biodiverse mixtures, we found the increase of mycorrhization percentage both maize and tomatoe cultures.