Adaptation of Trichoderma Species to Pesticide Confidor and Evaluation of their Growth Ability in the Media Containing Confidor

Contamination caused by pesticides is considered as one of the environmental problems. Bioremediation is exploiting the ability of microorganisms to remove pollutants. Trichoderma species are free-living fungi that exist naturally in the environment. These fungi have the ability to uptake some contaminants biologically. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of Confidor, as an environmental contaminant, on the growth ability of Trichoderma sp. as a contaminant absorber. Five species of Trichoderma fungi were cultured in PDA media. Then the fungi were adapted with 3 different concentrations of Confidor gradually (5, 10 and 20 mg/l). The diameter of the fungal colonies growing in different concentrations of the toxin, were measured after 24 hr and were compared with the control samples (medium without toxin). Results showed that in all species of fungi the colony diameters increased significantly with increasing toxin concentrations. The largest colony diameter was related to T.tomentosum, T.asperellum and T.harzianum (88.88, 87.5 and 86.95%, respectively) at the concentration of 20 mg of toxic. Also, in all studied fungal species, in the medium containing 20 (mg/ l) of toxic, the aerial hyphae expanded much thicker and faster than other concentrations.Discussion and The results indicate a significant increase in the growth ability of Trichoderma strains with increasing Confidor concentration. Therefore it could be concluded that Trichoderma fungi have a high potentiality for biodegradation of Confidor.