First report of leaf spot disease caused by Corynespora torulosa MCC-1368 on cotton plant from India

Abstract

In present study, the leaf spot disease of cotton plant emerged in the North Maharashtra region of India was reported. The fungal phytopathogen associated with inducing the leaf spot disease symptoms was isolated and characterised. The isolated fungus was identified as Corynespora torulosa (Deposition accession number, MCC-1368; Genbank accession no. MF462072) based on morphological and cultural characteristics and molecular analysis of ITS region. The pathogenicity of fungal phytopathogen was verified by Koch’s postulates. To our knowledge, this is the first report of incidence of leaf spot disease caused by Corynespora torulosa on cotton plant.

Keywords:

• Phytopathogen
• leaf spot disease
• Corynespora torulosa
• cotton plant
• first report

Acknowledgement

The authors are thankful to Dr Yogesh Shouche and Dr Kamlesh Jangid, National Center for Microbial Resource, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, India for molecular identification and deposition of fungal strain and also grateful of Mr Diptraj Chaudhari for construction of phylogenetic tree of an organism.