Cultural and morphological variability of Botrytis sp. isolates causing grey mould of Gladiolus in India Kaur Gurvinder1,*, Negi Hoshiyar Singh2, Ghosh Pallavi1 1School of Agricultural Sciences, RIMT University, Sirhind- 140 406, Punjab, India 2Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Banda University of Agriculture and Technology, Banda-210 001, Uttar Pradesh, India *e-mail: kaur.plantpatho@gmail.com
Online Published on 11 January, 2024. Abstract The gladiolus is one of the important cut flowers with the utmost commercial value in India. Gladiolus has about 180 species and over 30,000 cultivars, of which over 20 are produced in India for the production of flowers commercially. Botrytis grey mould (BGM) caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea is one of the most destructive diseases of the gladiolus. In a present study, a total of 35 isolates of Botrytis were obtained from the gladiolus surveyed area. Colony morphological studies (texture, form, colour, production, and degree of sporulation) have been conducted using three types of solid media i.e., PDA (Potato Dextrose Agar), Czapeck’s Dox Agar (CDA), Kritzmen and Netzer Agar medium. All B. cinerea strains gave maximum fungal mycelium growth on PDA (90.0 mm to 87.5 mm) and CDA than KN Agar medium. Spores of B. cinerea were also observed under Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Phase Contrast Microscope (PCM) for conidial size and number of conidia. The maximum conidial size was recorded on PDA in comparison to CDA and KN Agar media. Top Keywords Botrytis cinerea, BGM, Gladiolus, SEM and PCM. Top |