Assessment of Enzymatic Potential of Soil Fungi to Improve Soil Quality and Fertility

Soil is the very good habitat of fungi. The fungi have capacity to adopt in response unfavorable conditions of soil ecosystem. The fungal communities play a predominant role in the litter decomposition due to their lingo-cellulolytic potential. These enzymes helps in humus formation, hence increase soil health or fertility. In the present study, a total of 11 forms of fungi were isolated from soil of Mullana-Ambala, Haryana, India. Out of these, 9 fungi were identified, among these two belongs to Zygomycotina (Syncephalastrumsp.,Mucor plumbeus) and 7 belong to Deutromycotina (Aspergillus fumigatus, A. niger, A. quadrilineatus, A. terreus, A. candidus, A. flavus, A. sydowi). The ability of these fungi to produce extracellular enzymes viz. cellulolytic, pectolytic and lignolytic were testedin vitro.The wheat crop residues burning has observed a big problem in Haryana, hence in vitro decomposition of these post harvested residues was tested by using these fungi. It was observed that,A. terreusproduce higher lignolytic activity, but did not cause much decomposition as compare to other fungus. A. niger and Syncephalastrum sp. showed more pectolytic activity as compared to other species. TheA. flavus, A. terreus, A. niger, A. fumigates, Syncephalastrum sp.showed all three activity (CMCase, pectolytic and lignolytic). TheA. candidusdid not showed lignolytic activity but having good rate of decomposition of wheat straw. SinceA. nigerandA. candiduswere found potential decomposers of wheat crop residuesin vitro.