Promotion of Seedling Growth and Production of Wheat by Using Trichoderma spp.

The fungus Trichoderma spp. is known due to its versatility for promoting crop growth and grain yield, improving the nutrient absorption and increasing the grain yield. The objective of this work was to evaluate commercial strains of Trichoderma spp. and an organomineral fertilizer in the early growth promotion and grain yield of wheat plants. Thus, wheat seeds cv. BRS 264 were treated with 2 mL of a Trichoderma suspension (2.5 × 108 conidia mL-1 per 100 g seed) and submitted to growth in laboratory until 8 days after sowing (DAS). In the greenhouse experiment, the seeds were sown in an 8 L pot, which received 4.0 × 108 conidia of Trichoderma per pot. In both evaluations were: percentage of germination (PG), root length (RL), shoot length (SL), total length (TL), fresh root mass (FRM), fresh shoot mass (FSM), total fresh mass (TFM), dry root mass (DRM), dry shoot mass (DSM), total biomass (BIO), root mass ratio (RMR), shoot mass ratio (SMR) and aerial part/root system ratio (AP/RS). In the greenhouse experiment, paniculation and grain yield were evaluated at 110 DAS. The treatments T. harzianum ESALQ 1306 and T. asperellum URM5911 were considered satisfactory, since they provided grain yield superior to 2,000 kg ha-1. In addition, T. harzianum ESALQ 1306 provided the best results for PG, RL, SL, TL, FRM, FSM, TFM, DRM, DSM and BIO under greenhouse conditions. The reduced biomass allocation to the root system in seedlings treated with Trichoderma ssp. occurred in the laboratory, which was confirm in greenhouse.