The study was carried out as part of the Priority 2030 program. Scientists from the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology of the Institute of Biology and Biomedicine (IBBM) of UNN proved that the fungus of the genus Phialocephala (Phialocephala fortinii) can become the basis for effective and safe biofertilizer. It is fixed in the roots of heather berry crops (lingonberries, cranberries, blueberries) and provides plants with natural phosphorus from the soil. The fungus “pulls up” nutrients from the soil that were previously inaccessible to host plants. Such a symbiosis is safe for crops, it will not cause infection, – said the author of the study, an assistant at the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, IBBM UNN. N.I. Lobachevsky Vyacheslav Mikheev. Scientists conducted an experiment on cranberry plants. A fungus was added to one of them, while others remained uninfected. As a result of observations, it turned out that when cultivated with the fungus P. fortinii, cranberries increase the rate of growth, accumulation of biomass and phosphorus. Also, scientists from the Lobachevsky University for the first time described the complete mechanism of the interaction of the fungus with the plant: from the penetration of the fungus into the root and the formation of symbiosis to specific indicators of increasing the supply of phosphorus to plant tissues. The availability of phosphate fertilizers in the world is so uneven that sometimes their use is unprofitable. Getting into the soil, phosphates bind with metals and turn into a form inaccessible to plants, accumulating in the ground as ballast. At the same time, traditional mineral fertilizers are extracted from non-renewable sources and one day they will simply run out. All this makes biological fertilizers based on fungi of the Phialocephalus genus promising for agriculture,” Vyacheslav Mikheev said. The study was conducted as part of the implementation of the Priority 2030 program. The results are published in the international journal of mycology Journal of Fungi.
