Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature’s Key to Plant Survival and Success

Mycorrhizal fungal filaments (mycelia) radiate into the soil from mycorrhizae-colonized root tips, extending the capacity of the plant’s root system to absorb water and nutrients

Over 460 million years ago, plants and mycorrhizal fungi formed a beneficial relationship below the soil surface that nurtured and protected plants while feeding the fungi and other organisms in the root zone of the plants.1 That relationship exists today for over ninety percent of terrestrial species in natural settings, allowing plants to survive harsh conditions of drought, diseases, temperature extremes, poor soil, and competition.2 They are the dominant microbial life form in undisturbed soils, accounting for sixty to eighty percent of the microbial mass of the soil. Without them, for instance, large oaks, which use hundreds of gallons of water per day in the summer heat, would not thrive or grow to mature size on the dry hills of California.

Although the root-fungus association has been known since classical Greek times, when Theophrastus traced the mycelium of a mushroom back to oak tree roots, it has only been in the last...