Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are ubiquitous in agroecosystems and promoted as biofertilizer for sustainable agriculture. However, the environmental factors that limit responsiveness of plants to AM fungal inoculation are not clearly understood by meta-analysis of field inoculation studies. In our previous study, we showed that early dominance of the inoculum AM fungus in plant roots is a necessary condition for positive yield responses, but not sufficient condition. In this review, we divided the developmental process of mutualistic relationship into two phases: the colonization of inoculum AM fungus and the responsiveness of plants to AM fungal inoculation, identified the environmental factors that affect each process, and discussed how to control them.