Metarhizium anisopliae as endophyte has the ability of plant growth enhancement

Plants in natural ecosystem appear to be symbiotic with fungal endophytes. Metarhizium anisopliae is a fungal entomopathogen with the ability to colonize plants endophytically. In the present study we evaluated the effect of artificial inoculation of M. anisopliae on growth parameters of aerial and underground parts of tomato plants and also to determine its endophytic activities. M. anisopliae was applied as seed treatment, substrate treatments, foliar spray alone and in combination with other and comparison was made with the control. We observed significant increase in seed germination, shoot and root length and biomass production of 35 days old tomato seedlings. We could also recover the inoculated M. anisopliae from leaves, stem, roots and rhizosphere with highest per cent recovery of 55.55%, 77.77%, 33.33% and 106.66 cfu/g from leaves, stem, roots and rhizosphere respectively. The present experiment reveals some new information on the endophytic interaction between M. anisopliae and tomato plants but needs more research for understanding the actual mechanism of M. anisopliae by which the fungi cause growth promotion of plants.