Diversity of Fungal Endophytes in Different Varieties of Wheat Grown In Punjab

Abstract

Abiotic and biotic stresses are reducing the crop yield and productivity. There is an urge to increase abiotic and biotic stress tolerance and nutrient uptake efficiency of plants due to climatic changes in order to meet the global food demand. The earlier methods which aimed at improving crop cultivars viz. the introduction of the hybrids, increasing the agricultural inputs in terms of fertilizer, pesticides, water, herbicides and the practices of crop management. These methods helped in increasing the photosynthetic efficiency, growth and yield of the plant. Due to increase in population there is need to increase the production to meet the ever increasing demand. The method which is not detrimental to health of the human beings and for the soil. So, there is an urge to explore the “endophytic fungal” diversity associated with plant. The endophytes are the micro- symbionts which reside within plant without causing any harm to plant. Endophytic fungi are considered to be ware houses of plethora of bioactive compounds which exhibits antimicrobial, antifungal and immunosuppressive activities. The present study reports the exploration of diversity of fungal endophytes from the two high yielding varieties viz. HD2967, WH1105 of wheat (Triticum aestivum) grown in Punjab. In this study the isolation was done after every 15 days from the day of sowing till the flowering stage. The isolates obtained in the study were then subjected to production in potato dextrose broth for screening its biological activity in terms of the antimicrobial and antioxidant activity of culture filtrates. The polyphenols present in the culture filtrate were further ascertained using HPLC, wherein 8 standard polyphenols as well as the crude wheat grass extract was also analyzed. The potential endophytic fungus isolated were identified through classical tools. ITS region of approximately 500 bp-600 bp was amplified and further speciation of one fungal isolate was deduced after analyzing sequencing data of ITS region and rest are under process.