Rice plant growth performance
The results of the experiments showed that the treatment of rice plants with Trichoderma spp. has a significant effect on rice plant growth performance (Table 1). Significant increase in plant height was observed for the Trichoderma spp. treated rice plants, registering plant heights in the range of 65.77 – 70.47 cm whilst the means for NPK treated rice plants and control were recorded at 28.9 cm and 63.1 cm respectively. Significantly greater values for leaf number and tiller number were also observed for Trichoderma spp. treated rice plants. The highest value for leaf number was 38 whilst for tiller number was 13 for the Trichoderma spp. treated plants. On the other hand, the NPK treated rice plant registered 3 leaf number, whilst the control recorded 28. No tiller was observed for the NPK treated rice, whilst the control registered a tiller number of 8. Root length was found to be significantly increased for the Trichoderma spp. treated rice plants with a range between 17.17–22.5 cm whilst the NPK treated rice plants recorded root length of only 9.33 cm. For the control, root length was 14.57 cm. Root fresh weight was significantly higher for the Trichoderma spp. treated rice plants as well compared to NPK treated and control. The Trichoderma spp. treated rice plants registered the highest value which was 15.21 g whilst the root fresh weight for NPK treated plants and control were 3.07 g and 8.51 g respectively. Among the Trichoderma sp. SL2 treated rice plants showed the greatest increase in plant height, tiller number, root length and root fresh weight, while Trichoderma sp. SL7 had the greatest effect in enhancing the number of leaves. However, no significant improvement in root dry weight was seen for the Trichoderma spp. treated rice plants