Isolation of endophytes is a critical
step, because it requires sensitivity to recover a
maximum number of colonized endophytes and
should be accurate enough to eliminate the
epiphytic microbes which are present on the
plant surface. Endophytes can be isolated from
various plant parts such as seeds, leaves and
stems. The collected plants for studying
endophytic communities should look
apparently healthy and disease free plant, i.e.
they do not display any visual symptoms of
diseases, in order to minimize the presence of
plant pathogenic and saprobic species, and to
prevent the isolation of localized pathogenic
endophytic microorganisms (Strobel 2003,
Strobel & Daisy 2003)