INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY

Volume 15, No. 01, Month JANUARY, Year 2019, Pages 55 - 62

Screening, identification and evaluation of potential biocontrol fungi against water lettuce

Kongjornrak, A., Teeranate, P., Thinthani, T. and Piyaboon, O.

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Water lettuce is a major problem in water resources and rapid widespread. The management focused to change from herbicides to biological control using natural enemies of water lettuce including fungal pathogens. The blighted and spotted leaf of diseased water lettuce plants were collected from 8 provinces of Thailand. Thirty-nine isolates of fungal pathogens were identified using morphological characteristics. They were identified as Myrothecium 5 isolates, Chaetomium 2 isolates, Aspergillus 3 isolates, Rhizopus 3 isolates, Nigrospora 6 isolates, Bipolaris 4 isolates, Curvularia 2 isolates, Epicoccum 5 isolates and Acremonium 9 isolates. The fungal Myrothecium isolates, through the morphologically identification process, were selected to study molecular data, which were derived from sequencing the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of the rDNA. The result indicated that the five Myrothecium isolates could be identified as M. inundatum. Five isolates of M. inundatum were tested pathogenicity for controlling water lettuce. Fungal isolates were found to be the virulent pathogenicity on water lettuce.

Keywords

biocontrol, water lettuce, fungal pathogens

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