When, during the Silurian Age, the colonization of the lands began, the water-plants had to accomplish new evolutionary strategies to satisfy essential requirements as the uptake of water and nutrients from the ground.
Such a complex adaptation was possible by the help of a mutual plant-fungus symbiosis located at the feeding root apexes.
In Ectomycorrhizae the fungal mycelium densely covers the root apex increasing the soil exploration in a kind of root system prolongation made of fungus. Furthermore, the fungal component exhibits an important antagonistic behavior towards other soil-borne fungi, protecting the root tips from many diseases caused by fungal parasites (i.e. Fusarium, Pythium, Phytophthora).
The workshop will focus on the biology and the behavior of such fascinating symbiosis, with in depths on the identification of mycorrhizae in root samples directly collected at the Barcham Nurseries.