*4.7. Re-Isolation and Identification of Endophytic Fungi from Seedlings*

All the samples (seedlings) were washed with sterilized distilled water to eliminate surface fungal growth. Thereafter, the seedlings were placed into laminar air flow and exposed UV rays for 20 min to eliminate surface fungi. After UV exposure, 75% alcohol was added into the sample bottles for 30 s and mixed using gentle shaking, which was then washed twice with sterilized distilled water under laminar airflow. Thereafter, HgCl2 was immersed into the glass bottle for 3 min with continuous shaking. The HgCl2 water was removed after 3 min and then the samples were washed 3 times using sterilized distilled water. Brown paper sterilized in a hot air oven at 160 ◦C for 1.5 h was used for cutting the samples into smaller pieces. The samples (seedling) were moved onto the potato dextrose agar media plates. Two pieces of samples were transferred onto each Petri plate with the surface touching the media. The plates were incubated for five days at 25 ◦C in the incubator. After the fifth day of incubation, fungal hyphal tips emerging from the samples were recovered and purified using sub-culturing from growing hyphal tips. The growth, colony properties, and microscopic features of DMEs were recorded from the strains grown on the PDA media [34,35]. Microscopic details were obtained via a slide culture practice. Fungal hyphae stained with lactophenol cotton blue were assessed microscopically using light microscopy (Nikon Eclipse E200MV R with DS-1600 Panasonic CMOS Sensor, Nikon Corporation, Tokyo, Japan).
