MATERIAL AND METHOD 1 Fungal isolates RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Bogor, 21-22 October 2015 799 plants from pests and diseases Mejía et al., 2008; Vega et al., 2008, and to increase the resistance of plants to various types of stress Lewis, 2004. Fungal endophytes have several mechanisms to promote plant growth, such as production of plant growth regulating hormones and solubilization of insoluble minerals. Some fungal endophytes including Aspergillus flavus, A. niger, Fusarium oxysporum, Penicillium corylophilum, P. cyclopium, P. funiculosum and Rhizopus stolonifer isolated from diverse kinds of plants were reported for their ability to produce different kinds of plant growth promoting hormones like indole acetic acid IAA and gibberellic acid GA Hassan, 2002; Waqas et al., 2012: Nath et al., 2015. Various studies of endophytes application has been widely carried out in agricultural crops, including tomatoes Zehnder et al., 1999; Schuhegger et al., 2006; Khallal, 2007, tobacco Zhang et al. 2002, wheat Gorlach et al., 1996 and rice De Vleesschauwer et al., 2010. However, study for its application for forest crops are still rare. In this study, various isolates of fungal endophyte were analyzed to know their effect to the sengon Falcataria moluccana seedling growth. 2. MATERIAL AND METHOD 2.1 Fungal isolates Isolate of fungal endophytes used in this study were Trichoderma spp. such as isolate STB207, STK2012, STB208, STK3106 and STB107. This fungus is a collection of Laboratorium of Forest Protection, The Centre for Forest Reseach and Development, Bogor. 2.2 Fungal endophytes production Mass production of fungal endophytes were carried out by using rice media. Before being used for mass production, fungal endophytes were cultured in potato dextrose agar PDA media for two weeks. The mycelia then harvested by adding sterilized water and then inoculated to the rice media. The rice media then incubated for 1 month before ready to be used Saharayaj Namasivayam, 2008. 2.3 Application of fungal endophytes Fungal endophyte were applied on 1 month seedling of sengon. Application were carried out by adding fungal endophyte under the plant root. About 100 g of mycelium was added in a base of pot and then cover with soil media about 5 mm before planting the seedling in pot. 2.4 Analysis of sengon growth response by fungal endophyte application The study was conducted using a completely randomized design CRD, which consists of seven levels i.e. control with no fertilizer, control + Sp36 0.2 g, Control + Sp36 0.4 g, isolate STB207, STK2012, STB208, STK3106 and STB107. Each treatment had five replications. The parameters observed were the increase of plant height. Observations were carried out every two weeks until sixth week. After final observation, the dry weight of root, stem and leave were measured.

3. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Five isolates of fungal endophytes were tested their effect to sengon growth. The results of plant growth response after fungal endophytes application were showed in Table 1. In the second week observation, the highest increase of plant height was shown by Sp36 0.2 g treatment with 1.9 cm increase, followed by control and STB207 isolate with 1.4 and 1.2 cm respectively. In the fourth week of observation, the highest increase was shown by STK3106 isolate with 2.4 cm increase, followed by control and Sp36 0.4 g treatment with 2.1 cm increase for both of them. Meanwhile in the last week observation, STK3106 isolate showed Bogor, 21-22 October 2015 800 the highest increase of plant height, followed by STB207 isolate and Sp36 0.2 g treatment, with 6.2, 5.6 and 5.3 cm increase respectively. Table 1: The increase of plant height cm Isolate Plant height increase cm 2 nd Week 4 th Week 6 th Week Control no fertilizer 1.4 2.1 4.1 Control + Sp36 0,2 g 1.6 2.0 5.3 Control + Sp36 0.4 g 1.1 2.1 5.2 STK2012 0.8 1.5 3.4 STB207 1.2 1.6 5.6 STK3106 0.8 2.4 6.2 STB208 0.8 1.2 4.2 STB107 1.0 1.8 3.6 As biocontrol agent, besides their antagonistic against pathogens and induce plant resistance abilities, fungal endophytes should not interfere the plant growth, indeed it should be able to promote plant growth. In the second and fourth week after application, fungal endophytes did not show better result on promoting sengon growth compared to control. The effect of fungal endophytes on promoting sengon growth began to show better than control after sixth week application Figure 1. Fungal endophytes have several mechanisms to promote plant growth, such as production of plant growth regulating hormones and solubilization of insoluble minerals. Some reports indicated that endophytic fungi, such as Trichoderma and Aspergillus produce organic acids, such as citric acid, oxalic and malic which serves as a solvent phosphate and other macronutrient Altomare et al., 1999; Saeed et al., 2002. While studies conducted by Waqaz et al. 2012 showed that endophytic fungus Phoma glomerata LWL2 and Penicillium sp. LWL3 produce growth hormone gibberellin GA and indole acetic acid IAA and significantly increases the growth of GA deficient rice mutants. Figure 1: Sengon growth after final observation. a Control + Sp36 0.2 g; b isolate STB207; c isolate STK3101. Bogor, 21-22 October 2015 801 In the final observation, dry weight of root, stem and leaf from each treatment were compared Table 2. For the dry weight of root, isolate STK3106 has the heaviest weight followed by control + Sp36 0.4 g treatment. Meanwhile, for the dry weight of stem, isolate STK3106 along with isolate STK2102, STB207 had more weight than other treatment, and for dry weight of leave, control + Sp36 0.2 g had the heaviest weight compared to other treatment. This result confirm that application of fungal endophyte have a good effect to the sengon growth. Table 2: Dry weights of root and leaves after final observation Isolate Dry weight g Root Stem Leave Control no fertilizer 0.6 0.3 0.9 Control + Sp36 0,2 g 0.7 0.2 1.4 Control + Sp36 0.4 g 1.0 0.3 1.0 STK2012 0.7 0.4 0.9 STB207 0.7 0.4 0.9 STK3106 1.1 0.4 1.0 STB208 1.0 0.3 1.2 STB107 0.6 0.4 0.8

4. CONCLUSION