Isolation of plant growth promoting endophytic fungi from dicots inhabiting coastal sand dunes of korea

We investigated plant growth promoting activity of roots inhabiting endophytic fungi in order to evaluate their role in the survival of host plants under extreme sand dune environment of coastal regions. For this purpose, 122 fungal isolates were collected from the roots of 9 sand dune plants and were screened for growth promoting secondary metabolites. Our results showed that 101 fungal isolates (82.7%) promoted plant height and shoot length of Waito-C rice, while 21 fungal isolates (17.2%) inhibited growth attributes. The fungal isolate Gibberella fujikuroi along with distilled water and Czapek broth medium were used as control during the experiment. It was concluded that a major proportion of endophytic fungi inhabiting sand dune plants produce metabolites, which are helpful in plant growth and development.