Canadian Journal of Pure & Applied Sciences

Abstract: The experiments were conducted in open top chamber system installed at the University of the Punjab, Quaid-e-Azam Campus, Lahore. The wheat (Triticum aestivum Var. Blue silver) seeds were sown in earthen pots and were kept in filtered air (FA) and unfiltered air (UFA). The pots were given three different inocula for arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. The climatic data and concentration of ozone and nitrogen dioxide was recorded at regular intervals. In this paper the evidence is being provided that, the plants growing in FA chambers (without ozone and dust particles) responded well showing an enhancement in growth and yield parameters. There were differences among sets with variable inocula for mycorrhizal fungi. The growth performance of plants receiving inoculum with less species richness was better. We document that out of a total of 33 species, twenty-five species belonged to the genus Glomus, three each to Acaulospora and Sclerocystis and one each to Gigaspora and Scutellospora. The total number of species was variable during the growth phase. The number reduced to almost half in soil of UFA chambers during the growth period in all mycorrhizal treatments. Maximum number of species (33) at each harvest was recorded in the case of T1 treatment in FA chambers, where the root pieces were used as inoculum. At first harvest the number of species for T2 and control sets of FA chambers was different i.e. 25 and 28 for the two respectively, which was same (24) at the time of third harvest.