The mycelial growth of each of the rhizosphere fungi
under the study grown on PDA in 10 petri plates for 10 days at
250C was harvested separately in 50 ml of sterilized water. Final
volume of inoculum of each fungus was made to 500 ml after
fractioning the fungal mycelial mat in pestle and mortar. Inoculum
suspension so prepared was mixed with sterilized soil @150 ml
per surface sterilized pot of 20 cm diameter. Besides, treatementwise
additional 15 ml inoculum suspension of respective fungus
was poured in upper 3 cm layer of soil in each pot so as to
provide more effective contact of inoculum with the germinating
seeds immediately after sowing. On fifth day of soil inoculation,
ten surface sterilized soybean seeds of cv. GS 1 treated with
inoculum of respective rhizosphere fungus by dipping into
inoculum suspension for two minutes were sown into pots.
Three pots were maintained for each treatment. Pots without
inoculum served as control treatment. Pots were kept in
glasshouse and watered regularly. Ten days after sowing,
numbers of plants in each pot, root and shoot length and vigour
index were worked out for all the treatments including untreated
check. Seedlings which emerged out of soil level were
considered for computation of germination percentage. Seedling
vigour index in each treatment was calculated as under.