Maize response to endophytic Metarhizium robertsii is altered by water stress.

ABSTRACT: To defend against damage from environmental stress, plants have evolved strategies to respond to stress efficiently. One such strategy includes forming mutualist relationships with endophytes which confer stress-alleviating plant defensive and growth promoting effects. Metarhizium robertsii is an entomopathogen and plant-protective and growth-promoting endophyte. To determine the context dependency of the relationship between M. robertsii and maize, we conducted a greenhouse experiment that imposed stress as deficit and excess soil moisture on maize plants which were inoculated or not inoculated with M. robertsii and measured plant growth and defense indicators. Maize height and endophytic root colonization by M. robertsii were positively correlated in the deficit water treatment, but not

SUBMITTER: Peterson H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10681223 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature