Location of seedborne fungi in farmers saved samples of groundnut variety tag 24

Abstract

Using ISTA technique, component plating of groundnut seed revealed that seed coat (testa) was greatly infected with 25.84 per cent incidence of seed mycoflora followed by cotyledons (16.36%) and embryo (9.98%). Aspergillus niger remained the most frequently occurring fungus in both seed coat and cotyledons with 7.23 and 4.48 per cent incidence, respectively. A. flavus (4.46%) and Macrophomina phaseolina (3.89%) occupied second and third positions, respectively in the seed coat while Fusarium (2.82%) and A. flavus (2.66%) ranked second and third, respectively in cotyledons. Fusarium (2.55%) was the most frequently occurring fungus in the embryo followed by A. niger (2.41%) and M. phaseolina (2.41%). Penicillium remained the least occurring fungus in all the three components of the seed followed by Rhizopus. There was a gradual reduction in the occurrence of saprophytic fungi from seed coat to embryo and increase in the incidence of deep seated pathogenic fungi like Fusarium and M. phaseolina.