Figure 1.
Hydroponic system. Experimental design for the hydroponic system for maize-Trichoderma co-culture at 72 h time point (similar design was used for tomato system). A seven-day-old maize seedlings grown aseptically in MS medium in culture chambers, inoculated with a fungal preparation of T. virens Gv29.8 and incubated for 72 h (See Methods). The strain expresses GFP under control of a constitutive promoter, and panels B, F show merged fluorescence and bright field images. Two controls were included: hydroponic systems containing only T. virens growing in MS in the absence of maize seedlings (B, C), and control plants growing in MS without T. virens (D, E). F and G, maize roots inoculated with T. virens at 105 conidia/ml MS medium. Microscope images B, D, and F were taken at 10X magnification (B+ picture was taken with 40× magnification).