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In October 2021, jackfruits ((Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam., var. Varikka) cultivated at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, exhibited a characteristic rot with an incidence of 25 to 30%. Pure white, fluffy, fan shaped mycelia were observed with brown to black sclerotia on rind and fruit peduncle. Standard protocols were followed for isolation (Rangaswami and Mahadevan 1999). Cottony, white, fast growing mycelia were observed on potato dextrose agar (PDA). Circular, tan to brown sclerotia (0.3 to 2.0 mm) were seen after 5 days of incubation. Clamp connections were observed on hyaline, septate hyphae. For species identification, the ITS region of rDNA was amplified using the universal primers ITS4/ITS5 (White et al. 1990), sequenced and deposited in GenBank (OL 519185). BLASTn analysis of ITS revealed 99.62% identity with several isolates of Athelia rolfsii. Phylogenetic analysis using ITS sequences confirmed identity as it was closely grouped with ITS sequences of A. rolfsii isolates (MT 126471, MT 308987, and MK 300726). Based on morphological and molecular analyses, the fungus was identified as A. rolfsii (Cer and Morca 2020). Pathogenicity tests were conducted on five mature jackfruits, which were inoculated with 5 mm mycelial discs of 5-day-old fungus on the rind and incubated at 28 °C. Rotting symptoms were observed on all fruits on 10th day of incubation. No symptoms were observed on negative control fruits inoculated with PDA plugs. The fungus was reisolated and sequencing of ITS along with morphological characters confirmed the fungus as A. rolfsii. This is the first report of fruit rot caused by A. rolfsii in jackfruit in Kerala, India. The fungus is a major threat to several crops and, hence, warrants immediate attention.
References
Cer C, Morca AU (2020) First report of Athelia rolfsii (Sclerotium rolfsii Sacc.) causing collar rot disease on sunflower in Turkey. J Plant Pathol 102:931
Rangaswami G, Mahadevan A (1999) Diseases of cereals. Diseases of crop plants in India (4th ed.) Prentic Hall of India, Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, pp. 160-264
White et al (1990) Amplification and direct sequencing of fungal ribosomal RNA genes for phylogenetics. In: Innis MA, Gelfand DN, Sninsky JJ, White TJ (eds) PCR protocols: a guide to methods and applications. Academic Press, New York, pp 315–322
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Sajeena, A., Mathew, D., John, J. et al. First report of fruit rot of jackfruit caused by Athelia rolfsii in India. J Plant Pathol 104, 1171 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42161-022-01145-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42161-022-01145-8