truffles/ parasitic plants - the difference (Jan/28/2008 )
hi guys
just want to know,
what is the difference between a desert truffle and a desert parasitic plant!
both are non-photosynthetic and dependent! 
truffles are fungi, parasitic plants are, well, plants.
thanks bob1 for your reply
sure i know fungi and plants..
i'm asking for the purpose of cultivating the two!!
For cultivation you need to know the host plant(s) for both the fungi and the parasitic plant. For growing fungi, you guess the most likely way to succeed with getting a guaranteed infection is to grow the host in sterile culture with some fungal spores and then plant out the seedlings. In theory this should provide the appropriate commensal relationship between the plant and fungus.
Parasitic plants are bit more of a problem, I am not sure that anyone has managed to grow these successfully and reproducibly, but I guess that you need the host plant of the right age (maturity?) and some seed from the parasitic plant to be in close proximity with appropriate water and nutrient levels. I know that with mistletoes, which are not truely parasitic, you can rub the seed on a branch and you will sometimes get a new plant being formed, but not always and they often die in the first year.
u mean that we can't grow a parasitic plant independently without its host..!
even with tissue culture techniques! with any part other than the spores?!!
what if this plant is rare or grow only in some seasons!!
You probably could grow them in culture, but often parasitic plants need particular things from their hosts, wich is why they are so specific. Note that most parasitic plants dont have true roots, they tap directly nto the xylem and/or phloem, so the absorptive capabilities are reduced cf normal plants.
Fungi can normally be grown in culture OK.
bob1,
u mean that even simbiotic fungi can b grown independently in tissue culture?
and what if a parasitic plant induced to develop a root system in tissue culture?
> Usually saprotrophic/pathogenic fungi belong to the fungal phylla Ascomycota/Basidiomycota. Many of them (only a 17% of fungi can be grown in cultures) can be grown in the laboratory.
> Some of these fungi can form symbiotic associations with plants called mycorrhizas. Most plants develop the arbuscular type of mycorrhiza that is formed with fungi of the phyllum Glomeromycota. Arbuscular fungi, however, have a completely different physiology and are not known to support any parasitic plants (also impossible to grow in pure cultures). Ascomycota and Basidiomycota engage to other forms of mycorrhizas like Ectomycorrhizas. In Ectomycorrhiza plants engaging in the symbiosis gain nutrients (more notably nitrogen) in exchange to carbon. Some plants, however, trick the fungus anf gain both nutrients and carbon (that is derived from neighbour plants) from it (according to the identity of the symbions the symbiosis takes a different name - orchid, monotropoid mycorrhiza etc).
> I have never worked with Ectomycorrhizas but I know that it is easy to grow them in the lab (my supervisor has many cultures of them). I guess then it is not difficult to grow parasitic plants that benefit from them.
> Parasitic plants do not neccesserily rely on a fungus for their survival. There are plants that parasitize directly on other plants
thanx odiporos
what i mean, since we provide a fungus or a parasitic plants with all nutrients they need in culture media, is there any further need for a host plant!!
can they develop their own roots to absorb nutrients independently..!!??
what i mean, since we provide a fungus or a parasitic plants with all nutrients they need in culture media, is there any further need for a host plant!!
can they develop their own roots to absorb nutrients independently..!!??
Ectomycorrhizal fungi can grow in pure cultures. Glomeromycota not. I guess that it is possible to grow aseptically a plant without chlorophyll in a media with a fungus that will provide it with carbon in the absence of a host plant. I am not sure if this may apply for other parasitic plants that parasitize directly to their host. I guess however that since they develop very specialized structures to absorb nutrients from their hosts it won't be so easy..