Rhizoctonia bataticola is a serious pathogen of many crops. In the present studies, 40 isolates of Rhizoctonia bataticola from different agro climatic regions of India were analyzed for morphological and pathogenic variability. Regardless of their geographic origins, significant differences were detected among 40 isolates in their radial growth, sclerotial size, and shape as well as in pathogenicity. Thirty two isolates were rated as fast growing and the rest of the isolates as medium growing. Sixteen isolates were classified as large sized, 8 as small sized, and the remaining 16 isolates as medium sized on the basis of their sclerotial size. On the basis of disease expression, isolate Rb-29 (Kurundwad, Sangli) showed broad virulence range as it infected all the genotypes followed by isolate Rb-38 (Udaipur, Rajasthan) which infected eleven genotypes. No relationship was found among the morphological characters and pathogenicity of the isolates. These morphological and pathogenic variations in various isolates of R. bataticola may be considered important in disease management systems and will be useful in breeding programmes of soybean cultivars resistant to root rot.

Download this article as