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Abstract
India is the highest producer of Cicer arietinum, however the crop is susceptible to plant fungal diseases i.e. Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Botrytis cinerea, Fusarium oxysporum and Rhizoctonia solani. For a sustainable alternative, anti-plant pathogenic efficacy of fungal endophytes were investigated. Endophytic fungi of Mentha piperita were investigated for biodiversity, biocontrol potential towards these phytopathogens and their metabolite profiling. Sixty three fungal isolates were recovered from peppermints sampled in different seasons from distinct regions of India. Endophytic fungi were identified by ITS-rDNA sequence process. PCA divulged seasonal variability with exclusive presence of Colletotrichum sp., D. phaseolorum, Alternaria sp., Hypocrea sp. and R. oryzae in second sampling season. Shannon diversity index (H′) was found to be highest in leaf (1.253) from Mukteshwar. Acremonium sp. (MPM-2.1) extract exhibited anti-plant pathogenic activity with < 1 mg/ml IC50 value towards phytopathogens. GC-MS chromatography of potent biocontrol fungus Acremonium sp. (MPHSS-2.1) confirmed presence of antifungal compounds 1-heptacosanol and 1-nonadecane.
Acknowledgement
Researchers acknowledge TERI Institute for providing necessary infrastructure and equipments and anonymous reviewers for improving the manuscript considerably.
Notes
1. Menhinick’s index, Dmn = s/√N. s” depicts sum of fungal species in a given sample size, while N describes summation of individual isolates recovered in a given sample size. Camargo’s index (1/Dmn), Shannon–wiener diversity index (H′): H′ = −∑_i [Pi ln (Pi)] where, Pi is the relative abundance of a particular endophytic fungal isolate in a sample. Plieou’s evenness index (J′) J′ = H′/ln(S) wherein H′ is the Shannon–wiener diversity and S is endophytic fungi recovered from each sample in totality.