The glycine‐glomus‐rhizobium symbiosis III. Endophyte effects on leaf carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus nutrition

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Abstract
Soybean plants [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] were grown in pots and inoculated with Rhizobium japonicum and/or Glomus mosseae (Nicol. & Gerd.) Gerd. & Trappe, either at planting or 20 days later. Nitrogen was supplied in the nutrient solution to plants without nitrogen‐fixing bacteria, and P was added to those without the mycorrhizal fungus. At harvest, 50 days after planting, all plants had leaves of similar dry mass. Each root symbiont grew best in the absence of the other. Growth of Glomus reflected the duration of its growing time and the presence and duration of competition from Rhizobium. Nodule weight in the tripartite associations, on the other hand, was inhibited only by the earlier introduction of Glomus. Dipartite associations and the plants inoculated with both root symbionts at planting had the highest concentration of leaf N, and the lowest was in those inoculated with both organisms at d 20. Leaf P was highest in plants inoculated only with Rhizobium, and lowest in those tripartite associations involving any inoculation at day 20. The low values were presumably a result of the short duration of endophyte‐mediated P uptake before the plants were harvested. Although there was almost no difference in leaf sugar concentrations, starch concentrations reflected the duration of Glomus growth, and were greatest in those plants that had supported it for the least time. Uninoculated plants contained the least starch, but produced a greater fresh mass of leaf tissue than any of the tripartite symbionts.