The differential vitality of intraradical mycorrhizal structures and its implications

Preliminary assessment of the effect of storage on the vitality of mycorrhizal fungi inside plant roots gives insights into how fresh root material has to be when undertaking functional studies on plant–mycorrhizal fungus associations and also, perhaps more importantly, it highlights aspects of mycorrhizal inoculum potential. Here we report on the vitality of mycorrhizal structures in roots refrigerated at 5°C over a 3 week period. The change in vitality followed the same pattern whether the roots were excised from the soil or not. The vitality of internal hyphae and arbuscules remained constant for 2 weeks and 6 days, respectively, but then declined. The vitality of vesicles showed no change over the 3 week period.