FIGURE 5.

Mild salt condition optimizes fungal colonization and plant growth performance on synthetic medium. (A) Fresh and dry weights of A. thaliana co-cultivated with or without Trichoderma on PNM medium with 0–150 mM NaCl for 5 days. Error bars represent SEs from three independent biological replicates, each with four seedlings. Statistical significance was determined by 2-Way ANOVA. Post-hoc analysis between all groups was further carried out by Tukey HSD test with P < 0.05, and is shown in Supplementary Table 3. Asterisks indicate significant difference in fresh/dry weight of seedlings grown on 50 mM NaCl with or without Trichoderma. (B) Growth phenotype of A. thaliana on PNM medium with 50 mM NaCl 5 days after co-cultivation with or without Trichoderma. (C) Quantification of Trichoderma root colonization on A. thaliana on PNM medium with 0–150 mM NaCl by qPCR. TrTEF1: Trichoderma TEF1; RPS: A. thaliana ribosomal protein S13/S18 family. Error bars represent SEs from three independent biological replicates, each with four seedlings. Statistical significance was determined by Tukey’s HSD test with P < 0.05, and is indicated by different lower-case letters. Red color represents average background value referred from samples without Trichoderma.