Estruturação, diversidade e uso de comunidades de fungos micorrízicos arbusculares em morangueiros

Abstract

The strawberry production system integrates technologies that favor fruit production and quality. However, the new cultivars require technologies that generally involve the excessive use of chemical inputs, which causes environmental contamination. Thus, alternatives must be proposed to minimize this inconvenience, making the cultivation system of this horticultural more sustainable. A biotechnological tool that fulfills this purpose corresponds to the use of inoculants based on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). Despite the relevance of the strawberry-AMF interface, the identification and structuring of mycorrhizal communities that make up the microbiota of soils in Rio Grande do Sul ecosystems cultivated with strawberry are scarce. Therefore, the objective of this study was to characterize cultivated and native forest soils at reference-sites in strawberry cultivation, regarding the occurre nce of AMF. Thus, three studies were carried out. In the first one, the logic of the research was a description with hypothesis survey at the end of the study, with the following objective: 1) to characterize cultivated and native forest soils, of reference-sites in strawberry cultivation, regarding the AMF community. The other studies were of association with interference, with the following objectives: 2) to verify if there is variability regarding the diversity and inoculum potential of AMF communities i n cultivated and native forest soils of the sampled sites; 3) to evaluate if strawberry plants in the absence and presence of inoculation with AMF communities, obtained from soils collected at reference -sites in the cultivation of this species, differ in t he morphoagronomic performance. The results of the studies showed that the mycorrhizasphere of these soils was constituted by 42 AMF species, of which Claroideoglomus claroideum and C. etunicatum were dominant, independent of the ecosystem. Native forest soils presented higher AMF richness in relation to cultivated soils, but in poorly anthropogenic agricultural soils there was similarity in the AMF amount in natural soils. The inoculation with the identified mycorrhizal communities showed a positive effect on the morphoagronomic performance of the strawberry plants, with emphasis on the root system and fruit quality. In conclusion, this research provides information on the structuring, diversity and utilization of AMF communities, present in the microbiota of cultivated and natural soils of reference-sites in strawberry cultivation. However, there are still answers that need to be understood and investigated about AMF dynamics in the rhizosphere and in the strawberry symbiont, so that the mycorrhizal associa tion is potentiated in an environmentally sustainable way.