Vol. 11, Issue 12 (2022)

Author(s):
LP Patil, GP Jagtap, DG Hingole, SY Pawar and GB Gaikwad

Abstract:
Maize is a major cereal crop and India's third most significant crop after rice and wheat. The crop is afflicted by many fungal diseases, one of which is leaf blight, also known as northern maize leaf blight or turcicum leaf blight, which affects photosynthesis and reduces grain output by 28 to 91%. Disease symptoms first emerge on the leaves at any stage of plant development, but most commonly at or after anthesis. For the variability experiments, nine maize isolates of E. turcicum were used. All of the isolates differed in terms of cultural and physical characteristics. All nine isolates were classified into five groups based on colony colour. The pigmentation of the isolates SEt2, GEt3, KEt5, VEt6, SoEt9 and KhEt8 was noticeably different. Nine isolates had three different conidial shapes: curved, spindle and elongated. Conidia has an average length of 73.79 μm and a width of 22.42 μm. The number of septa discovered ranged from 3 to 9. Conidia were found in all of the isolates. Conidia size was greatest in isolate PhEt7 (97.96 μm), with an average of 3-8 septation. Temperature is a key component in regulating the fungus's development and reproduction. The effect of several temperatures on the mycelia growth of Exserohilum turcicum, namely 20 °C, 25 °C and 30 °C, was investigated. Temperatures of 25-30 °C promote larger mycelial growth of fungus, but temperatures of 20 °C are less favourable.