Adapted biofertilizers for improving survival, growth and C sequestration of high value plants

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Silviculture, landscaping and certain high value crops in agriculture/horticulture require large numbers of plants produced by nurseries. Many plant species used in these areas commonly suffer from growth depressions and even death following transplantati on from nurseries to the field where they are outplanted for decorative or production purposes. Such growth depressions and die-off present substantial economic losses, both with respect to repeated planting, reduced yield and even reduced C sequestration in a climate perspective. An efficient means of reducing transplantation stress and mortality is to provide the plant roots with their natural symbiotic fungi. In nature, practically all plants form symbiotic associations with fungi (so called mycorrhiz a), which improve host plant nutrition and protection throughout their life. Artificial and disinfected substrates used in nurseries are often void of such fungi, and since a lot of plants exhibit strong mycorrhizal dependency, the lack of mycorrhizal sym biosis results in weakening of plant vitality leading to reduced survival after transplanting into target soil conditions. It has already been demonstrated that by inoculating nursery plants with mycorrhizal fungi at sowing, some weeks or months prior to transplantation, or adding such fungi directly to the soil during outplanting, transplantation stress and mortality can be avoided or strongly reduced. The production of mycorrhizal fungi for inoculation is a delicate task that requires advanced biologic al knowledge and close expert surveillance during production in specialized facilities. The Czech SME Symbiom Ltd. has in collaboration with several research institutions in the Czech Republic including CUNI, succeeded to establish a production line for a number of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi and made them commercially available as biofertilizer products or products improving plant growth for horticulture, agriculture and forestry in several EU and non-EU count