African Journal of Botany

ISSN 2756-3294

African Journal of Botany ISSN: 3519-3824 Vol. 8 (1), pp. 001-007, January, 2020. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Variations in the isolates of Macrophomina phaseolina from sesame in China based on amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and pathogenicity

Wang Linhai1, Zhang Yanxin1, Li Donghua1, Huang Junbin2, Wei Wenliang1, Lv Haixia1 and Zhang Xiurong1*

1Oil Crops Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Key Laboratory of Oil Crop Biology of the Ministry of Agriculture, Wuhan 430062, China.

2Department of Plant Protection, College of Plant Science and Technology, The Key Laboratory of Plant Pathology of Hubei Province, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.

Accepted 15 November, 2019

Abstract

Charcoal rot that is caused by Macrophomina phaseolina, the most damaging disease in sesame in China. Variations in the 35 isolates of M. phaseolina collected from the main sesame producing regions in central China comprising of Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi province were studied based on morphology, pathogenicity and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). The results showed that the morphological characteristics, including density of aerial mycelia, sclerotia quantity, sclerotium size and growth speed of colony, had rich variations. The pathogenicity index of these isolates ranged from 0.03 to 4.64 with an average of 2.10. Four isolates (17, 21, 28 and 35) with pathogenicity index more than 4.0 from the locations alongside Yangtze River were found here. AFLP analysis indicated that the paired genetic similarity coefficients of these isolates ranged from 0.65 to 0.97 with an average of 0.83. These isolates could be divided into seven genotypic groups based on unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) dendrogram. However, no clear relationships among the groups, geographic regions and PI were found. These results may be helpful to understanding the population structure of the fungus and contribute to the control of sesame charcoal rot in China.

Key words: Macrophomina phaseolina, pathogenicity, charcoal rot, sesame, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP).