MORPHOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF COLLETOTRICHUM FALCATUM ISOLATES

A survey was conducted to find out the prevalence of red rot incidence and found that maximum red rot incidence was observed in the sugarcane cultivar Co 0238 (45%) dominating over all the varieties growing in both the districts viz.Samastipur and Gopalganj covering more than 70 per cent sugarcane area.Cultivars BO 91 and Rajendra Ganna-1 were found free from the infection of red rot.Seven isolates were obtained from the collected diseased specimen where the colour of the mycelium of all the isolates varied as whitish grey, greyish white, and pinkish white.The texture of the mycelium was fluffy, abundant, aerial, scanty raised mycelium.The shape of the conidia was observed as falcate.The average length of the conidia ranged from 21.32m to 27.37 m and the average width varied from 4.10 m to 4.39 m.Spores were counted with the help of haemocytometer.Number of spores ranged from 3.2 x 10 4 spores/ml to 4.6 x 10 4 spores/ml.This study showed about the morphological characterization of isolates of Colletotrichum falcatum.