MYCORRHIZAL STATUS OF CULTIVATED AND WILD PEARL MILLET (PENNISETUMGLAUCUM (L.) R. BR) IN THREE AGRO-ECOLOGICAL ZONES OF SENEGAL Marie-Thérèse Mofini 1,2,3,4,# , Abdala G. Diedhiou 1,2,3,4 , Cheikh Ndiaye 1,2,3,4 , Sarah Pignoly 2,3 , Doohong Min 5 , Laurent Laplaze 2,3,4,6 , and Aboubacry Kane 1,2,3,4 1 Département de Biologie Végétale, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, B.P.5005 Dakar-Fann, Sénégal; 2 Laboratoire Mixte International Adaptation des Plantes et Microorganismes Associés aux Stress Environnementaux (LAPSE), Centre de recherché de Bel-Air, Dakar, Sénégal; 3 Laboratoire Commun de Microbiologie (LCM), Centre de Recherche de Bel-Air, Dakar, Sénégal; 4 Centre d’Excellence Africain en Agriculture pour la Sécurité Alimentaire et Nutritionnelle (CEA-AGRISAN), UCAD, Dakar, Sénégal; 5 Kansas State University, Department of Agronomy, Manhattan, Kansas, USA; 6 DIADE, Université de Montpellier, IRD, Montpellier, France ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Pearl millet (Pennisetumglaucum (L.) R. Br) is a cereal grown in the driest tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Asia. Thanks to its strong capacity to adapt to the dry tropical climate and low fertility soils, millet plays an important role in the food security of local populations in these regions. It is able to establish a mycorrhizal symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), which play a key role in the absorption of nutrients and the mitigation of abiotic and biotic stress in their host. We first evaluated the mycorrhizal status of cultivated and wild millet in three agro-ecological zones of Senegal by following a rainfall gradient and then the effect of inoculation with AMF on the growth of cultivated millet. We found that wild and cultivated millet establishedarbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis but a low rate of mycorrhizationwas observed. The frequency of mycorhization was significantly higher in cultivated than in wild plants. We then evaluated the impact of AMF inoculation on plant growth and found very limited impact. These results suggest that millet is not very dependent on mycorrhizae although AMF may stimulate its growth. Copyright © 2020, Marie-Thérèse Mofin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. INTRODUCTION Pearl millet (Pennisetumglaucum (L.) R. Br) is a major staple food and source of fodder and fuel in the arid and semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa and India. The vegetative, reproductive and physiological characteristics of pearl millet make it a crop well suited for growth under difficult conditions, including low soil fertility, high pH, low soil moisture, high temperature, high salinity and limited rainfall where maize, rice, sorghum or durum wheat may fail (Vadez et al., 2012). Pearl millet grain is highly nutritious, with 8- 19% protein, low starch, high fiber (1.2 g/100 g; Nambiar et al., 2011), and higher micronutrient concentrations (iron and zinc) than rice, wheat, maize and sorghum (Tako et al., 2015). It was domesticated in the central Sahel (Mali-Niger) about 4900 years ago as corroborated by archaeological and genomic studies (Burgarella et al., 2018). Despite the clear importance of pearl millet in agriculture, the production and productivity of this staple crop are very low, with an average grain yield of just 900 kg/ha. This low production is due, among other things, to climatic variability and low soil fertility, particularly in terms of nitrogen and assimilable phosphorus. It is well established that the association of cereal roots with AMF in the soil is likely to increase the hydromineral nutrition and productivity of these plants when grown under adverse soil conditions (Rodriguez et al., 2008; Ahanger et al., 2014; Salam et al., 2017). Cultivated pearl millet, like most cultivated plant species, can form a symbiotic association with these AMF. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi play a significant role in soil structure and aggregate stability (Rillig and ISSN: 2230-9926 International Journal of Development Research Vol. 10, Issue, 12, pp. 42550-42556, December, 2020 https://doi.org/10.37118/ijdr.20643.12.2020 Article History: Received 18 th September, 2020 Received in revised form 26 th October, 2020 Accepted 11 th November, 2020 Published online 30 th December, 2020 Available online at http://www.journalijdr.com Citation: Marie-Thérèse Mofini, Abdala G. Diedhiou, Cheikh Ndiaye, Sarah Pignoly, Doohong Min, Laurent Laplaze, and Aboubacry Kane, 2020. “Mycorrhizal status of cultivated and wild pearl millet (pennisetumglaucum (l.) r. br) in three agro-ecological zones of Senegal”, International Journal of Development Research, 10, (12), 42550-42556. RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS Key Words: Pearl millet, Wild relatives, Root, AMF, Inoculation. *Corresponding author: Marie-Thérèse Mofini,