Identification and characterisation of fungi associated with kedondong (spondias dulcis) diseases in Sarawak

• Main Author: Tharm, Ruen Ping
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, (UNIMAS) 2015
• Subjects: S Agriculture (General)
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/10516/1/Tharm%20%2824pgs%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/10516/4/Tharm%20Ruen%20Ping%20ft.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/10516/

This study was done for the purposes to identify fungi associated with kedondong diseases based on morphological characteristics and molecular analyses and to study the physiological characteristics the effect of different temperature and pH on the growth of isolated fungi. Infected fruits, leaves and petioles of kedondong were taken from Bintulu, Batu Kawa, Kuching and also brought from the Stutong market. Diseases found on kedondong were greyish-black fruit spots, greyish-brown fruit spots, brown fruit spots, black fruit spots, brown fruit rot, dry fruit rot, black leaf spots, brown lesions leaf spots, leaf tip lesion and shiny grey symptom petioles. Infected parts were inoculated onto Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) media. The fungi identified associated with the diseases were Phomopsis phyllanthicola, Pestalotiopsis microspora, Colletotrichum sp., Epicoccum sorghinum, Botryodiplodia sp., Fusarium sp., Xylaria sp. Aspergillus flavus, Curvularia sp. and two unidentified fungi. The molecular identification of three fungal isolates (P. phyllanthicola, P. microspora and E. sorghinum) was supported by ITS sequence analysis. The growth of the fungi at the different temperature showed that most of the fungi grew significantly faster at temperature 25 oC. Effect of pH was varied depending on the fungal isolates. All the fungi were able to grow in the range of pH 3 to pH 8.