AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY

Mycorrhizal technology
Say ‘no’ to soil pollutants

Looks can surely be deceptive. For, who could say by
looking at this microscopic fungus that it is potent
enough to revive a wasteland and turn it into – take your
pick – a lush, flowering garden, a fruit orchard or even a
verdant field? Yet, on the other hand, seeing is
believing. As this fungus fuses life into earth, sick soil
turns fertile and returns to health that was long lost to
generous doses of heavy chemical fertilizers and
pesticides.
Finally, a real ‘fertilizer’
After years of labour, T E R I ’s Centre for Mycorrhizal
Research achieved a technological breakthrough—mass-
cultivation of a consortium of mycorrhizae on a semi-
occurring fungi found in most soil types or ecosystems,
excessive and incessant use of chemical fertilizers,
insecticides, etc., has had an adverse effect on this
unique group of organisms. Unregulated use of
chemicals, over the years, has reduced the natural
regeneration ability of soil and degraded its structure,
the environment, and, therefore, food quality. As a
result, agriculture-intensive economies suffer from
polluted soils and wastelands amidst an ever-increasing
demand for food production.
Microbes, saviours in action
Mycorrhizae, on the other hand, use phosphorus from
extremely low concentrations and provide a nature-
friendly alternative to chemical fertilizers. T E R I ’s
mycorrhizal consortium is a technological innovation
with multiple organisms as against its earlier version
that contained a single species. The consortium
technology offers improved and multi-faceted benefits in
plant production systems. A product of this type bypasses
the limitations of the conventional method and allows
storage at room temperature for more than five years.
T E R I ’s mycorrhizal organic fertilizers offer
sustainable and environment-friendly solutions to almost
all cultivated plants and crops by
• enhancing nutrition and yields up to 5%–25%, and

Technology formulations: tablets and powder

synthetic medium under sterile environments.

Capable of relieving agriculturalists of their woes,
arbuscular mycorrhiza are a group of the most common
symbiotic fungi and represent a permanent association
with roots of plants. The only known fungal system
categorized as a biofertilizer, mycorrhizae provide plant
roots with extended arms that help them tap soil
nutrients that are otherwise beyond their reach
(Figure 1). For plants, this means better uptake of
phosphorus, more nitrogen, and greater availability of
other micronutrients—all different ways of fighting tough
physical conditions, enriching soil, increasing health,
and decreasing dependence on chemical fertilizers.

When the fields are consumed …

The cycle is vicious—though mycorrhizae are naturally- Figure 1 Consortium production

48 T E R I ’s technologies for sustainable development

• curtailing chemical fertilizer inputs by 50%.
India has about 114 million hectares of land
under cultivation and is also the second most
populous country in the world. To meet its ever-
rising demand for food, the dual measures of
increasing land area under cultivation and
improving productivity per square kilometre will
have to be taken. This means that close to 55
million hectares of wasteland or fallow land will
have to be brought under cultivation. Mycorrhizal
technology can not only reclaim wastelands but
also enrich soil with phosphorus, making the
whole exercise a showcase in sustainability.

Beneficiaries
The biofertilizer is available to end-users –
entrepreneurs, commercial growers, farmers, and
companies – at competitive prices. A couple of
companies in India (Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd
and KCP Sugars and Industries) have initiated
commercial production of the biofertilizer. Some
European and American industries too have
shown keen interest in adopting this technology. Mycorrhiza applied to soyabean cultivation gave 30% more
Useful for many kinds of vegetables, fruits, yield with a 25% reduction in fertilizer application

My corr
Mycorr hiza biof
corrhiza er
biofer tilizer: a cure-all
ertilizer:
T E R I ’s in vitro mycorrhiza biofertilizer is a
multipurpose and multi-faceted product—it is a soil
conditioner, bio-remediator, and bio-control agent and
has wide applications in agriculture, plantations,
horticulture, forestry, and biofuels. There is more—it
has shown immense potential in reclamation of
stressed ecosystems like fly ash dumps, sites loaded
with alkali chlor sludge or distillery effluents, and
other man-made wastelands.
pulses, plantations, fodder crops, etc., mycorrhiza has
proven, through field trials conducted by T E R I , that fly
ash dumps and mined-out areas and sites affected by
industrial effluents, oil sludge, and chlor alkali sludge
can be reclaimed for vegetation. Affected sites around
the Badarpur Thermal Power Station in Delhi, the Korba
Super Thermal Power Station in Chhattisgarh, and the
Vijayawada State Thermal Power Station in Andhra
Pradesh have been completely restored. Only this
technology provides a sustainable, economical, and
healthy answer to clearing the approximately 30 000
hectares of land under fly ash in India. The results are
an eye-opener.
Applications/benefits
Implementation of TERI’s mycorrhizal technology
requires an investment of 6.4 million rupees – which
includes the capital cost, licence fee, consumables, and
annual labour costs for production in the order of 200-
tonne capacity in the first year – compared to an
investment of 444.2 million rupees for conventional
technological solutions. Recurring costs are much less
in the TERI technology than that of in the conventional
technology. Also, energy inputs in the TERI technology
are a mere 5% and water requirements a minute
fraction – 0.0003% – of the conventional technology.
Of the annual demand for approximately 48 million
tonnes of phosphatic fertilizers for agriculture in India,
only 33.48 million tonnes is procured from domestic
chemical fertilizer industries. The deficit (14.5 million
tonnes) is imported from other countries. This situation
can be overcome in a cost-effective and eco-friendly
manner with the large-scale adoption of mycorrhizae.
TERI offers the technology to mass-produce viable,
healthy, genetically pure, and high-quality fungal
propagules without any pathogenic contamination under
in vitro sterile environment. TERI’s biofertilizer thus
holds the promise of a green future.

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