AXENIC CULTURE OF ARBUSCULAR MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI

This chapter discusses axenic culture of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. The development of a method which would enable the culturing of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi is widely perceived as being highly desirable but such a method remains as elusive in the last decade of the twentieth century as it was in the first. The development and applicability of such methods is described here and their merits are discussed from both practical and theoretical standpoints. The most valuable general insight to emerge from the discovery of techniques for culturing some rust fungi is the recognition that culturing these biotrophs involves finding solutions to two problems, not one. The culture of rust fungi had always been regarded solely as a problem in fungal nutrition. Furthermore, work on the axenic culture of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi is handicapped by the same narrow and simplistic thinking that blocked progress toward culturing rust fungi for so long. Culturing the mutualistic symbionts in vitro is also seen exclusively in terms of fungal nutrition. © 1992 Academic Press Limited