Cultural and morphological variability in Colletotrichum gloeosporioides inciting mango anthracnose

Abstract

Anthracnose disease of mango causes by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides (Penz.) Penz and Sacc. Is one of the most devastating pathogen in mango, which behaves differently to varied environmental conditions in their symptom developement, severity and adaptibility. So, an invitro study was conducted to know cultural and morphological variability of ten different isolates of pathogen in major mango growing districts of Karnataka. Our study was found that, among the ten isolates, numerically maximum radial growth observed in Cg-8 (88.83 mm) isolate followed by Cg-1 (88.67 mm) and least was observed in Cg-7 isolate (87.17 mm). Mycelial growth pattern and pigmentation varied from circular to suppressed and white, pinkish to black respectively. Spore size also varied among the isolates, large sized spores (8.12-10.41 x 2.12-3.06 µm) were observed in Cg-1isolate, while, small sized spores (5.08-7.02 x 1.97-2.52 µm) were in Cg-10 isolate. Sporulation was also varied among the isolates, excellent sporulation (++++) was found in Cg-5 and Cg-7 isolates, whereas, poor (+) was found in Cg-10 isolate.