Morphometric and Internally Transcribed Spacer Gene Sequence-Based Characterization of <i>Alternaria burnsii</i>

Abstract

Alternaria burnsii, the pathogen responsible for cumin blight, was collected from diseased plant samples from North Gujarat. AB-01 showed maximum growth at 28  1C. Conidia ranged from 44.92 to 63.28 m in length and 10.84 to 24.36 m in width whereas beak length of conidia ranged from 20.34 to 47.85 m. The isolate AB-01 showed the highest sporulation frequency (1.24  10 5 /ml), but the highest percentage of disease intensity was observed in AB-08 (31.4). Internally transcribed spacer gene sequence based phylogenetic grouping using MEGA5.6 and the factorial analysis using DARwin5 reflect the presence of two distinct groups. The fast growing isolates that show high pathogenicity are present in group-I of the dendrogram whereas the members of group-II show grey black colony colour, light brown colony margin, plain irregular growth pattern, and comparatively larger beak length of conidia.

Pomegranate: Postharvest Fungal Diseases and Control

“…The second Alternaria species recorded on pomegranate fruit is A. arborescens [26] whose colonies are greenishgray or brown in color, characterized by a slow growth rate; conidia shape ranges from oval to ellipsoidal, with 1-4 transverse and 1-2 longitudinal septa. Being erect and straight, branched, bended, and geniculate, A. burnsii conidiophores are typical whereas conidia are ununiformly slight but featured by a short beak [30]. Due to morphological heterogeneity, molecular approach is useful to identify species and morphotypes, particularly it may be advantageous using OPA 1-3 or OPA 10-2 barcoding regions [31] and/or a multilocus approach as described by Aloi et al [26].…”