Microbial resources for Mozambican agriculture: use of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi as a sustainable alternative to chemical input in cotton production

Mozambique is a sub-Saharan country subsisted by familiar agriculture in which the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers are common. Local farmers however poorly understand the harmful effect of chemical inputs, either for themselves or soil biodiversity. For decades cotton have been one of the major cash crops levying around 80 percent of the national investment. Constraints to cotton cultivation were greatly presence of insects and weeds and soil nutrients deficit. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) arisen representing a viable and self-renewable alternative to agrochemicals along with benefits for the environment. AMF are obligate root fungal symbionts that facilitate plant growth, by capturing nutrients in depleted soils like the Mozambican one's, fact that makes them a possible solution to limit chemical input. In the present work two cotton varieties (CA 324 and ALBARSZ 9314) were pot cultivated with previously tested commercial inocula in order to evaluate whether these fungi could be able to infect these particular varieties. It was verified that AMF infected cotton roots of both varieties, being the commercial inoculum from MycAgro Lab the one that showed best infection/typical structures presence ratio. Secondarily we are studying soil native fungal communities present in cotton cultivated field in Nampula province (Mozambique).