Potentials of Arbuscular Mycorrhiza Fungus in Tolerating Drought in Maize ( Zea mays L.)

Abstract

Maize is one of the most important cereal crops widely grown for food, feed, and fodder/forage throughout the world in a range of agroecologicalenvironments. Drought stress continuesto haunt the maize farmers across south western part of Nigeria, therebyleading to low quantity of this essential staple food in the market.Efforts have been made to enhance the growths and yields in maize byinvestigating the influence of Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (Gigaspora gigantea) on the tolerance ofmaize to drought stress. The experiment was conducted in the teaching and researchfarm of Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Nigeria. The experiment was laid outin a complete randomized design with four replicates. Data were collected oneight morphological drought related characters. The objective of this researchwork was to evaluate the morpho-agronomic responses and potential of Gigaspora gigantea colonization in maizedrought tolerance, and also to select parents in maize breeding for improvedyield related components. The combined analysis of variance showed significant(P 0.05) treatmenteffect on majority of the traits evaluated. The treatments of ArbuscularMycorrhiza Fungus (AMF) produced significant higher growth related traitssuggesting that AMF treated plants had higher potential in influencing thetolerance to drought. Accession 3 was considered best for most of the traitsstudied and can be selected as parents in maize breeding for yield relatedcomponents.