Isolation, characterization, and plant growth-promoting activities of endophytic fungi from a wild orchid .

Endophytism is one of the widely explored phenomena related to orchids and fungi. Endophytic fungi assist plants by supplementing nutrient acquisition, and synthesis of plant growth regulators. is an epiphytic orchid that has a great diversity of endophytic fungi. Endophytic fungi were isolated from roots, stems, and leaves of and identified by both morphological and molecular study. Furthermore, the isolated endophytic fungi were subjected to auxin synthesis, phosphate solubilization, ammonia synthesis, and elicitor growth test for understanding their growth-promoting effect in a qualitative and quantitative manner. Altogether, 12 different endophytic fungi were isolated from roots, stems, and leaves of of which most species belonged to Ascomycota. Unidentified II fungi were found to be most effective for auxin synthesis and phosphate solubilization while and were most effective for ammonia synthesis. We have tested the plant growth-promoting activity of the twelve isolated endophytic fungi on protocorms (12 weeks old). All the endophytic fungi showed growth-promoting activity. Plant growth of was found higher on the MS medium supplemented with all fungal elicitors. Fungal elicitor CVS4, however, showed the highest plant growth-promoting activity toward .