’Has Ceratonia siliqua formed a joint venture with mycorrhizal and nitrogen fixing symbioses? Potential for juvenile tree growth and orchard establishment’

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’Ceramyc has opened a number of very promising avenues of research on the possibility of an nitrogen acquisition by nitrogenase activity to be confirmed by a wider sampling to complete the data on natural isotopic abundance of 15N. These results have to be connected with the presence of endophytic bacteria of the genus Rhizobia. Tagging these bacteria with fluorescent markers in the presence (or not) of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi should allow to follow the root interactions between the fungus and the tagged bacterial strains leading to bacterial endophytism. Ceramyc allowed the formation of two students from two masters, and helped to support the work of a thesis student of the University of Marrakesh. These studies have led to several posters and oral communications in national and international conferences, and should lead to several publications in peered-reviewed journals.’