Screening and Identification of the Rhizosphere Fungal Communities Associated with Land Reclamation in Egypt

Mostafa Nafaa, Samah Mohamed Rizk, Tahany Abdel-Ghafar Ahmed Aly, Mohamed Abdel-Salam Rashed, Diaa Abd El-Moneim, Abir Ben Bacha, Mona Alonazi and Mahmoud Magdy ()
Additional contact information
Mostafa Nafaa: Genetics Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11241, Egypt
Samah Mohamed Rizk: Genetics Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11241, Egypt
Tahany Abdel-Ghafar Ahmed Aly: Regional Center for Food and Feed Agricultural Research, Giza 12619, Egypt
Mohamed Abdel-Salam Rashed: Genetics Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11241, Egypt
Diaa Abd El-Moneim: Department of Plant Production (Genetic Branch), Faculty of Environmental Agricultural Sciences, Arish University, El-Arish 45511, Egypt
Abir Ben Bacha: Biochemistry Department, Science College, King Saud University, Riyadh P.O. Box 22452, Saudi Arabia
Mona Alonazi: Biochemistry Department, Science College, King Saud University, Riyadh P.O. Box 22452, Saudi Arabia
Mahmoud Magdy: Genetics Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11241, Egypt

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Soil fungi are a wide range of microorganisms that play an essential role in enhancing the available nutrients in the soil for plants. In the current study, to study the fungal association with newly reclaimed land in Egypt, 22 composite soil samples were screened and characterized from citrus and olive orchard soil in contrast to a control soil that had never been cultivated (a nearby desert). The isolates were identified and tested for P solubilization and IAA production to highlight their potential as biofertilizers while the sampled soil was characterized. The physicochemical characteristics of the orchard’s soil sample had a high relative mean moisture content, and the C/N ratio were 45.24% and 16.8% compared with desert lands of 32.80% and 8.12%, respectively, while a higher pH was recorded for desert lands. A total of 272 fungal isolates yielded 27 filamentous fungal species. Based on ITS molecular identification, the 27 isolates belonged to phyla Ascomycota, from eight genera. Twelve species were positive in producing a phosphate clearance zone around the fungal colony growth, while ten species were able to release IAA in vitro with different tryptophan concentrations under different pH values. When known pathogenic fungi were excluded, Aspergillus tubingensis and A. fumigatus were the highest IAA producers and can solubilize phosphorus. The screening and identification of the fungal diversity of the newly reclaimed land provided insights into potential phosphate solubilizers and plant phytohormones producers (i.e., IAA). Overall, the obtained results can provide primary knowledge that indicates the great potential fungal ability to develop biofertilizers for application in improving the production of immature soil for agriculture reclamation processes and practices.

Keywords: reclaimed lands; internal transcribed spacer (ITS); phylogeny; phosphate solubilization; Indole acetic acid (IAA) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/1/215/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/1/215/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:1:p:215-:d:1036169

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().