TY  - JOUR
A1  - Osman, Mohamed
A1  - Stigloher, Christian
A1  - Mueller, Martin J.
A1  - Waller, Frank
T1  - An improved growth medium for enhanced inoculum production of the plant growth-promoting fungus Serendipita indica
JF  - Plant Methods
N2  - Background 
The plant endophytic fungus Serendipita indica colonizes roots of a wide range of plant species and can enhance growth and stress resistance of these plants. Due to its ease of axenic cultivation and its broad host plant range including the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and numerous crop plants, it is widely used as a model fungus to study beneficial fungus-root interactions. In addition, it was suggested to be utilized for commercial applications, e.g. to enhance yield in barley and other species. To produce inoculum, S. indica is mostly cultivated in a complex Hill-Kafer medium (CM medium), however, growth in this medium is slow, and yield of chlamydospores, which are often used for plant root inoculation, is relatively low. 

Results 
We tested and optimized a simple vegetable juice-based medium for an enhanced yield of fungal inoculum. The described vegetable juice (VJ) medium is based on commercially available vegetable juice and is easy to prepare. VJ medium was superior to the currently used CM medium with respect to biomass production in liquid medium and hyphal growth on agar plates. Using solid VJ medium supplemented with sucrose (VJS), a high amount of chlamydospores developed already after 8 days of cultivation, producing significantly more spores than on CM medium. Use of VJ medium is not restricted to S. indica, as it also supported growth of two pathogenic fungi often used in plant pathology experiments: the ascomycete Fusarium graminearum, the causal agent of Fusarium head blight disease on wheat and barley, and Verticillium longisporum, the causal agent of verticillium wilt. 

Conclusions 
The described VJ medium is recommended for streamlined and efficient production of inoculum for the plant endophytic fungus Serendipita indica and might prove superior for the propagation of other fungi for research purposes.
KW  - Serendipita indica
KW  - Plant root endophyte
KW  - Inoculum production
KW  - Complex medium
KW  - Aspergillus medium
KW  - Vegetable juice
KW  - Plant growth promotion
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-229186
VL  - 16
ER  -