Abstract

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM) have a positive effect on plant growth and nutrition, as well as increase the host plant's ability for coping with different types of stress. To assess the effect of Funneliformis mosseae inoculation on Glycyrrhiza glabra L. growth under Pb stress conditions, an experiment was conducted in a factorial randomized complete design with combination of two factors, fungi (inoculated and non- inoculated) and soil Pb levels (0, 150, 300 and 450 mg/Kg soil) with four replicates. Mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal plants were exposed to different concentrations of Pb for 3 months. The results showed that the changes of growth parameters at different Pb levels were not significant with the exception of shoot and root fresh weights and leaf area at Pb150 level also leaf area at Pb300 level in comparison with control (Pb0). In this study, shoot fresh and dry weights, shoot length and leaf area in inoculated plants were higher than non- inoculated plants under different Pb levels while root/shoot dry weight ratio was higher in non- inoculated plants. Overall, our results showed that inoculation of liquorice with mycorrhizal fungus could improve growth parameters of under Pb stress condition. Keywords: Inoculation with fungus, Biomass, heavy metals