The effect of mycorrhizae and media composition on urban farming

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are a popular fungus that improve plant nutrient uptake. Besides nutrient availability, the problems cultivation vegetables in pot was soil compaction, so it is necessary to study the composition of the planting media too. This study performed vegetables to application AMF and composition media to growth plants. In this paper, the experimental method was design in factorial by completely randomized block with three replicates. The first factor was AMF inoculant various dose; 0, 10, 20 g/ polybag and the second factor wes the composition mixture of soil: husk charcoal: manure consists of three levels: 2:1:1, 1:2:1 and 1:1:2. Analysed data by analysis of variance followed by Least Significant Difference Test (LSD). The results showed that, the best combination for vegetable growth if planting with application 10 g/plant of AMF inoculant on media (soil: husk charcoal: manure) composition 2:1:1.


Introduction
Cultivating various kinds of vegetables in pots/polybags is an alternative choice for urban communities to meet their fiber and vitamin consumption needs.The transition from a village to a city resulted in a land use change to non-agricultural and narrower yard area.Nutrient availability and drought stress exerts detrimental effects on polybag plant growth, influences agricultural production on urban farming.Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) as bio-fertilizers can significantly improve plant nutrient uptake and resistance to several abiotic stress factors [1], improve the quality of soil by influencing its structure and texture, and hence plant health [2,3].Outside the roots, the mycelia of AMF can spread the growing media to uptake nutrients and water from the rhizosphere [4].
On the other hand, the composition of the growing media also as a factor determinant of agricultural success on polybag.Rice husk charcoal and manure ware mixture a top soil for planting media.Problems with cultivating with pots/polybags was soil compaction which interferes with plant growth, so it is necessary to study the composition of the planting media.These compactions can be avoided by mixing other materials into the soil that is commonly used as a planting media.Mixing manure is commonly used as a supply of nutrients besides improving the physical properties of the media [5], but the addition of husk charcoal intended improving media more porous.Husk charcoal has properties that easy to pretense water, not easy to agglomerate, the price is relatively cheap, the material is easily available, light, sterile and has good porosity.These materials are used in Planting media, but the exact ratio of each ingredient is still unknown.This is probably because the different types of plants can be responded differently to the composition of the growing media.
In this Study, the authors discuss the potential advantages of the association between mycorrhizae and composition media to growth plants under miniature soil conditions and their role in nutrient supply.The composition of these influence its structure and water holding capacity of plant media.Thus, we observed about the growth and yield of pakcoy because of the treatment AMF inoculant doses and composition media.The purpose of research was analyzing effect of main factor (AMF inoculant various doses and plant media various composition) on growth Pakcoy and analyze the interaction between AMF inoculant and composition of the planting media to the growth Pakcoy.so have the best treatment combination for recommendations.
Management of nutrient quality in the planting medium has a positive correlation with increasing nutrient availability.The results of this study can be used as a direct recommendation on cultivating vegetables in pot/polybag media and can also be developed in further research in developing vegetables in dry land or paddy fields as intercrops when not planting rice because of no irrigation water.The increased production of pakcoy cultivation with the application of various doses of AMF combined with the composition of the planting media has greatly helped fulfill the consumption of vegetables for people in urban areas.It is accordance with increasing population growth, awareness of vegetable consumption and increasing land conversion to non-agricultural areas in urban areas.

Study site.
The experiment was conducted at the experimental farm of Dharma Wacana College of Agricultural Sciences, Kota Metro, Lampung, Indonesia in January -March 2022.

Mycorrhizae inoculant
Mycorrhizae inoculant from the laboratory of the Lampung University, has been mixed in zeolite media as a carrier consisted four species: Glomus sp., Entropospora sp., Gigaspora sp., dan Acaulospora sp.Every 1 g of AMF equivalent to 24 spores.

Field experiment
The preparation of the planting medium was carried out by collecting and sifting the media material consisting of top soil, husk charcoal and cow manure.The comparison of each material used a volume ratio, according to treatment.All the ingredients are mixed, then put in a polybag up to 3/4 the height of the polybag which size 0.15 mm x 35 cm x 50 cm lay flat.
Transplanting Pakcoy when the seedlings aged 14 days.It's removed from the seedling media slowly so that the roots were not damaged.The roots are cleaned with running water until they are free from the seedling medium.then, the roots were dipped into AMF before being planted into polybags.the remaining mycorrhiza according to each treatment dose was put around the embedded roots.Pakcoy growth is maintained by regular watering, weed control, pests and diseases.

Data collection and analysis
Observations of growth and yield of Pakcoy used 10 samples from each treatment were taken at random, observed variables include: plant height, number of leaves, plant biomass The homogeneity of the data 3 was tested using the Bartlett test, and the non-additivity was tested using the Tukey test before analysing the variance

Results and discussion
AMF application at various doses has an effect on increasing plant biomass.Mycorrhiza application at a dose of 10 g/polybag was able to increase the fresh weight per plant (Pakcoy biomass), but increasing the dose to 20 g/polybag showed the same response.On the other hand, the composition media had a significant effect on biomass pakcoy and no significant effect on other growth and yield variables (Table 1).Another research showed that plants given AMF 10 g/plant were the best treatment for growth and yield of mustard greens [6], the addition of AMF was increasing growth and yield of peanut plants [7].The roles of AMF were increasing plant growth by expanding the range of nutrient absorption, increasing availability N and P nutrients with the external AMF hyphae [8].The increase in plant height, number of leaves and plant biomass were due to AMF which is a fungus that has a very important role for plants and facilitated the absorption of nutrients in the soil [9].In this study, the growing media with more doses of manure showed higher biomass compared to other compositions (Table 1).Cultivating plants in narrow containers such as pots or polybags requires unique nutrient management.The addition of manure helps rebuild microbial biomass and improve soil functions even in heavily managed crop systems.Manure provides large amounts of organic carbon and nutrients that stimulate enzyme-mediated microbial activity, promoting the growth, abundance, and diversity of microbes in the soil.In turn, increases in soil microbial content will affect soil-plant interactions by directly increasing nutrient availability.Manure returns essential macro elements including N (2.42%), P (1.51%), and K (0.41%), as well as micronutrients to the soil while maintaining its fertility.Therefore, manure improved soil quality (physical, chemical and biological characteristics) of the soil compared to rice husk charcoal.According to [10] manure is a soil amendment that can increase rice production.
Several researchers have reported that nutrients available for plant uptake increase rapidly in the experimental soil after organic manure application, although bacterial populations were different in various soils [11] Microorganisms living in the soil are important for decomposing, mineralizing, and recycling organic matters [12].Microbial populations intensively induce the production of phytohormones such as gibberellin and auxin in plant roots grown in fertile soil with rich organic manures which stimulate plant growth [13].[11] showed that the composition of media soil: Charcoal husk: manure 1:2:3 gave the highest yield in total harvest (964.5 g/plant) compared to the composition that less manure with composition 2:1:3 and 3:2:1.On the other hand, the size of the polybag determines the development of hyphae which indirectly affects plant yields.The larger polybag size of 20 x 25 showed the highest total yield (1,022.7 g/plant) compared polybag size 15 x 20 and 20 x 20 on tomato (Licopercicum escelentum Mill).
The results showed that there was an interaction between AMF and the composition media.AMF dose of 10 g/plant and the composition of soil: husk charcoal and cow manure 2:1:1 was the highest of the plant and Number of Plant Leaves (Table 2 and 3).It's indicating that there is a synergistic role of AMF and manure to increase nutrient ability of N. According to [8], AMF applied with cow dung interacts in increasing the height of mustard plants  This is thought related to the role of AMF which were more effective in assisting the absorption of nutrients for the growth and development of pakcoy plants, but the effectiveness of inoculants is highly dependent on the environment in the form of differences in the composition of the growing media.In this study it was seen that the addition of organic matter such as husks charcoal and manure to the planting medium with a composition of 1:2:1 and 1:1:2 in response to plant height and number of leaves was not significantly different with increasing mycorrhizal doses.the mycorrhiza infects the root system of plants host will produce hyphae network intensively, so that plants are mycorrhizal will be able to improve capacity to absorb nutrients and water.The aggregate formation of soil to be good texture and structure due to the application of manure helps mycorrhizal hyphae penetrate the soil so that the range of hyphae is wider in helping the absorption of nutrients for plants and increased water retention.
According to [12], if total soil P was very high lead to the fulfilment of nutrients for plants.It but it can a lack AMF infection in these plants.The function of AMF for plants is as follows nutrient absorption aid especially phosphorus for plants, but if the conditions If the soil contains enough nutrients, AMF will reduce.This causes the addition of AMF doses in this study showed no significant effect on some of the growth variables of pakcoy plants.However, [13] stated there is no interaction between the dose of AMF inoculant and the composition of the planting medium on number of tillers, number of leaves, stem diameter, stem height, fresh weight crown, root wet weight, crown dry weight and root dry weight of sugarcane.AMF could increase tolerance to environmental stress in diverse mechanisms.The infected roots by AMF showed some increasing lignification in endodermic cells.Besides that, the infected roots showed the increasing phenolic compounds as a result of chemical analysis result and it would increase lyase enzyme that could induce resistance of the plant.Therefore, AMF useful for the development of urban farming, especially the cultivation of vegetables in pots/polybags which often experience water stress problems due to watering with an uncertain frequency or even frequent until there are symptoms of lay, watering using household waste water, so it may have an acidic pH, and media can be saline.According to research [14], the salinity stress at the level of 7500 ppm inhibited the height, leaf area, and proline content of tomato plant.Application of 20 g AMF increased plant height, leaf area, numbers of leaf, index of chlorophyll, proline content of tomato plant, and fruit weight.

Conclusions
The application of AMF inoculants increases the growth and yield of pakcoy, but the AMF symbiosis process was determined by the composition media.Application 10 g/plant of AMF on composition 2:1:1 of media (soil: husk charcoal: manure) was the best combination for vegetable growth.

Table 1 .
Pakcoy biomass due to dosage of AMF in various composition media.
Noted: Numbers followed by the same letter (uppercase column direction, lowercase row direction) we're not significantly different in the 5% LSD test.

Table 2 .
Pakcoy plant height due to dosage of AMF in various composition media.Noted: Numbers followed by the same letter (uppercase column direction, lowercase row direction)We're not significantly different in the 5% LSD test.

Table 3 .
Number of plants leaves due to dosage of AMF in various composition media.