Cultural and Morphological Variability among Exserohilum turcicum Isolates Causing Turcicum Leaf Blight of Maize

• Published in: Environment and ecology Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 16 - 21
• Main Authors: Reddy, T Rajeshwar, Reddy, P Narayan, Reddy, R Ranga, Reddy, S Sokka
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.03.2014
• Subjects: Exserohilum turcicum; Sorghum; Zea mays
• ISSN: 0970-0420

A total of seven isolates of E. turcicum from maize and one isolate of E. turcicum from sorghum were chosen for variability studies. All the eight isolates of E. turcicum showed variability in respect to cultural and morphological characters. Based on the colony color all the eight isolates were grouped in to 5 categories i.e., gray, dark grey, very dark gray, very darkish brown and black. Based on the pigmentation E. turcicum isolates were grouped into 3 groups i.e. black, bluish black, greenish black. All the eight E. turcicum isolates were classified into three groups based on the sporulation. Based on the growth eight E. turcicum isolates are classified into 3 groups viz., profuse growth, moderate growth and poor restricted growth. All E. turcicum isolates were classified in to 2 groups based on colony margin viz., regular margin and irregular margin. All the isolates of E. turcicum have shown variation with respect to conidial size and septation. Conidial size varied from 1757.00 [mu]m super(2) (Et sub(5)) to 3352.13 [mu]m super(2) (Et sub(1)) and the number of septa varied from 5.46 (Et sub(8)) to 9.20 (Et sub(5)).