Morphological and molecular identification of fungi associated with corm rot and blight symptoms on plantain (<i>Musa paradisiaca</i>) in macro-propagators

Abstract

Plantain is a major staple food crop for millions of people in Cameroon and contributes significantly to food security. A limiting factor to large-scale production of plantains is the difficulty in obtaining healthy planting materials. Macro-propagation technology, which has the potential to produce 50-60 shoots per sucker in 4-5 months, was introduced to bypass this difficulty. The aim of this study was to isolate and identify the fungi growing in plantain propagators in Buea municipality, which could probably be responsible for the corm rot and blight symptoms observed. Fungi were isolated from the corm, root, pseudostem, leaves and from fruiting bodies on Potato dextrose agar. Isolates were characterized using cultural, micro-morphological and molecular techniques. A total of 5 isolates were obtained, most of which were whitish in colour and all had septate hyphae, belonging to the Ascomycota. The molecular weight of the DNA of the isolates ranged between 500-800 bp. Based on sequence similarity, these isolates were identified to belong to five species viz: Alternaria burnsii, Fusarium oxysporum, Chaetomium globosum, Hypocrea lixii and Trichoderma harzianum. Of these five isolates, F. oxysporum was the only one that had been reported to be the causal agent of Fusarium wilt (Panama) disease of plantain. Fusarium and Chaetomium are likely responsible for the diseased symptoms observed. Proper management and control of these fungal species in propagators will permit the production of healthy seedlings, thus enabling large scale production of plantains.

Morphological, phytochemical and molecular characterization of five common Jatropha species in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

“…These secondary metabolites identified in these Jatropha species have been reported in several other plants used for curative activity against various pathogens, used traditionally as analgesic and soothing herbs (El-Mewafy et al, 2016). The use of molecular marker technique has been employed to authenticate the identification and relationship of organisms (Gontia-Mishra et al, 2013;Bechem and Afanga, 2017). The use of molecular marker has been employed in the taxonomic elucidation of Jatropha species (Tanya et al, 2011, El-Mewafy et al, 2016.…”

Characterisation of Fungi of Stored Common Bean Cultivars Grown in Menoua Division, Cameroon

“…Cameroon is located in the central part of Africa. Cameroon is situated at latitude 4° 8ʺ 40N - 4° 11ʺ North of the equator and between longitude 9° 16ʺ 90E – 9° 17ʺ 45E of the Greenwich meridian (Bechem and Afanga 2017).…”

Trends and Applications of Omics Technologies to Functional Characterisation of Enzymes and Protein Metabolites Produced by Fungi

“…The study and application of molecular biology to fungi characterisation has rapidly gained popularity as a gold standard approach and is entrenched now as validation for most morphological characterisation [ 64 ]. Its routine adoption to the taxonomic identification of pathogenic fungi has greatly assisted in the resolution of previously unidentified fungi to species level [ 26 , 65 , 66 ]. The process begins with genomic extraction techniques, sequencing which employs specific DNA markers that allow for identification to species level; further bioinformatics analyses facilitate phylogeny establishment.…”