Systemic Colonization by Enhances Cover Crop Growth.

Fungi in the genus (Hypocreales: Clavicipitaceae) are insect pathogens that can establish as endophytes and can benefit their host plant. In field experiments, we observed a positive correlation between the prevalence of and legume cover crops, and a negative relationship with brassicaceous cover crops and with increasing proportion of cereal rye in mixtures. Here, we report the effects of endophytic on three cover crop species under greenhouse conditions. We inoculated seeds of Austrian winter pea ( L., AWP), cereal rye ( L.), and winter canola ( L.) with conidia of to assess the effects of endophytic colonization on cover crop growth. We recovered from 59%, 46%, and 39% of seed-inoculated AWP, cereal rye, and canola plants, respectively. Endophytic significantly increased height and above-ground biomass of AWP and cereal rye but did not affect chlorophyll content of any of the cover crop species. Among inoculated plants from which we recovered , above-ground biomass of AWP was positively correlated with the proportion of colonized root but not leaf tissue sections. Our results suggest that winter cover crops may help to conserve spp. in annual cropping systems.