Vol. 11, Issue 2 (2022)

Author(s):
Savitha AS, Nagaraja A and Ajithkumar K

Abstract:
A study was undertaken to know the severity of false smut in rice growing ecosystems of Karnataka and it was ranged from 1.19 to 4.38 per cent with the mean per cent infected tillers of 2.93 on the varieties like Narmage, MO-21, BPT-5204 and Irga with maximum severity in Udupi and Karkala taluk. During survey, samples were collected and isolations were made to study the variability of false smut pathogen. Among the collected isolates, five isolates representing different rice growing ecosystems were studied for their growth on five different media and found that potato sucrose agar media was best for culturing of fungus. The primer pair ITS-1 and ITS-4 amplified the DNA of U. virens at 600-700 bp and sequencing of PCR amplified product showed 91 to 99 per cent similarity with NCBI-BLAST analysis and confirms the isolates as U. virens. Further, the RAPD analysis indicated the diversity among the U. virens isolates collected from different rice growing ecosystem of Karnataka.