Morphological Characterization of Isolates of Macrophomina phaseolina Causing Charcoal Rot of Sorghum Sukanya R.1,*, Jayalakshmi S. K.2, Sunkad Gururaj1, Aswathanarayana D. S.1, Girish G.3 1Department of Plant Pathology, University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur 2Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agricultural Science, Kalaburgi 3Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agricultural Science, Kalaburagi, Karnataka, India *email: sukanyachavan888@gmail.com
Online published on 15 December, 2016. Abstract Roving survey on charcoal rot of sorghum caused by Macrophomina phaseolina was carried out during rabi season of 2014–15 in five districts of Northern Karnataka, showed morphological variations among the isolates of M. phaseolina. Based on the colony growth and colour the isolates were groupedintofour groups. Among the phenotypic characters, the right angle and acute angle branching and septate hyphae was a common character. The size of sclerotia varied from 50 μm to 150 μm. Round shaped sclerotia were observed in 35 isolates. While the oblong shaped sclerotia were observed in 17 isolates. Maximum number of sclerotia of 50 per microscopic field (10x) was recorded. Variation among 52 isolates in sclerotial growth pattern, size, shape, colour and number of sclerotia were observed. Top Keywords Sorghum, Charcoal rot, Isolates and Sclerotia. Top |