Effect of different abiotic factors on the growth and sporulation of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides causing anthracnose of mango

Abstract

The postharvest losses of mango are up to 17– 36%, which may rise up to 100% if proper management strategies are not in place, along with conditions favor the disease development. A better understanding towards the targeted pathogen greatly helps in designing effective control strategy. The fungal growth is greatly influenced by nutritional factors, such as a nitrogen source, carbon source, pH of the substrate and temperature. All these factors play important role in fungal growth, sporulation and other activities of fungi. In effective integrated plant disease management programs, plant growth conditions may be changed to form the unfavorable conditions for the pathogen development. Factors that affect the multiplication and sporulation of pathogenic fungi are numerous, including photo periods, incubation temperature, pH of the growth medium, nutrients in the growth medium, etc. With this aim the present studies on the influence of physiological factors on vegetative growth and sporulation of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides causing anthracnose rot of mango was carried out. Among ten culture media significantly maximum colony growth of C. gloeosporioides fungus was observed on Corn meal agar, Malt extract agar, Sabouraud's agar and Oat meal agar followed by Potato carrot agar. Significantly higher numbers of conidia were observed on Waksman's agar and Corn meal agar, followed by Oat meal agar. Corn meal broth medium produced maximum dry mycelial weight of test pathogen followed by Waksman's and Czapek's broth. The incubation of test fungus under ‘12 hrs light 12 hrs dark’ produced significantly more colony growth than other treatments. The minimum, optimum and maximum temperatures for C. gloeosporioides are 20⁰C, 30⁰C and 40⁰C, respectively. It grows best at pH5 followed by pH6.