Isolation of AM Fungi from Rhizospheric Soil and Assessing Their Potential in Revegetating the Mining Wasteland of Gujarat using Inoculated Trees Saplings

Fluorspar (CaF2), is a common mineral, occurring in green, purple, yellow, or colorless crystals, which is used in metallurgy and makinga variety of chemicals used in refrigeration. Kadipani in Gujarat has large deposits of this ore. Open cast mining by GMDC has resultedin disturbed ecology. Earlier the efforts have been made by the forest department to grow tree species, in order to restore the forestecosystem, but the plants grew slowly and with stunted morphology and scanty survival. The obligate fungal symbionts known asarbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) present in plants play a key factor supporting plant growth in stressed conditions. Therefore, AMFstrains were first isolated from mining area and were used to raise the saplings first in polybags. Then after 75 days these were used forrevegetating the mine burdens or nearby waste land. The paper presents a pioneering efforts made to isolate and identify, the AMFfrom Fluorspar mines in Gujarat and then Glomus fasciculatum was incorporated in polybags filled with normal garden soil. Plants werealso raised by single spore inoculation method. Preliminary experiments revealed that the inoculated AMF strains promoted seedlinggrowth of Leuceana leucocephala and Millettia pinnata. The inoculation of AMF spores enhanced the growth of both the plants, and suchapplication can be used in sustainable restoration of the mining areas. Review discusses the structure of AM spores and mechanismsinvolved to equip them to survive in stressed situations and as symbionts help the plants to perform better.