International Research Journal of Biological Sciences ___________________________________ ISSN 2278-3202 Vol. 2(11), 47-54, November (2013) Int. Res. J. Biological Sci. International Science Congress Association 47 Effects of Mycorrhizal Fungi in Phytoremediation of Heavy Zinc- Contaminated Soils by Forage Corn Hamid Moharami 1,* , Mohammad Reza Momayezi 2 and Mohammad Nasri 2 1* Student of Agronomy, Varamin-Pishva Branch, Islamic Azad University, Varamin, IRAN 2 Department of Agronomy, Varamin-Pishva Branch, Islamic Azad University, Varamin, IRAN Available online at: www.isca.in, www.isca.me Received 11 th July 2013, revised 25 th August 2013, accepted 24 th September 2013 Abstract This study was done aiming at investigating interaction between manure and mycorrhizal fungi on amount of phytoremediation of forage maize in Varamin in summer 2012. It should be noted that sewage water was used for irrigation of this farm in the south of Tehran for many years and then it was irrigated tap water while conducting this research. This study was run in factorial form in the form of a randomized complete block design with three replications with following factors: 1. Mycorrhiza (M) at 3 levels - without the use of mycorrhiza fertilizer (M 0 ), b. use of mycorrhiza fertilizer as 60 kg per hectare (M 1 ), c. use of mycorrhiza fertilizer as 120 kg per hectare (M 2 ) and, manure treatment (F) at 3 levels – a. without use of animal manure (F 0 ) b – use of 25 tons of manure per ha (F 1 ), c – use of 50 tons of manure per ha (F 2 ). Variance analysis results showed that concentration of zinc in leaf is higher than root. The highest zinc concentration with 30.92 mg/kg was observed in aerial organ. According to research, forage corn, presence of mycorrhizal fungi, and animal manure can be used in phytoremediation of zinc. Keywords: Animal manure, mycorrhizal fungi, forage corn, phytoremediation, heavy elements of zinc. Introduction Remediation of soils contaminated with heavy metals is very important because many areas are contaminated with heavy elements which are not suitable for agriculture. Heavy metals may be transferred to plant from soil and may threaten performance and health of food chain, environment for human. Thus replacement and elimination or reduction of their impact in environment on academic and scientific bases is a necessity. Application of plants with ability of absorbing heavy metals is a low-cost alternative for eliminating soils from heavy metals. Application of plants for remediation of soils and waters contaminated with organic and mineral pollutants is called phytoremediation which is known as a new method for in-situ remediation of contaminated soils. Phytoremediation technology is using plants for replacement, transfer or stabilization of heavy metals in contaminated soils with low to average contamination in the area of root development. This technique originally was used for groundwater containing contaminated material and then it was applied on contaminated soils and air 1 . Phytomining is a technology with high efficiency for eliminating heavy metals from soils with low to average contamination. In this method, super absorbent plants which are able to absorb high amount o heavy metals by roots and transfer to aerial organs are used. Or other plants which produce high biomass but concentration of the metals are normal in their texture are used (Phytomining) 2 . Most super absorbent plants produce low biomass or their biomass is reduced over the time due to depletion of nutrients and variety of disease or emergence of stressors such as decreased pH, low air conditioning and other environmental stresses. In addition, soils may be contaminated with various metals, some of which seriously affect plant fertility and since plant species rarely are able to extract more than one metal, duration of contamination reduction is decreased. In condition of lack of zinc, dynamicity and activity of zinc and its transfer to aerial organs of corn and colonized trifolium with mycorrhizal fungi has been shown 3 . These findings indicate useful role of mycorrhizal coexistence in improvement of zinc nutrition as a micronutrient. Material and Methods This study was done aiming at investigating interaction between manure and mycorrhizal fungi on amount of phytoremediation of forage maize in Varamin in summer 2012. This study was run in factorial form in the form of a randomized complete block design with three replications with following factors: 1. Mycorrhiza (M) at 3 levels - without the use of mycorrhiza fertilizer (M 0 ), b. use of mycorrhiza fertilizer as 60 kg per hectare (M 1 ), c. use of mycorrhiza fertilizer as 120 kg per hectare (M 2 ) and, manure treatment (F) at 3 levels – a. without use of animal manure (F 0 ) b – use of 25 tons of manure per ha (F 1 ), c – use of 50 tons of manure per ha (F 2 ). Characteristics of Corn and Mycorrhizal Fungi: KSC704 type was used in this experiment with TKW 7/281 mg and 92%