Morphological, pathological and molecular characterisation of rice sheath blight disease causal organism Rhizoctonia solani AG-1 IA in Egypt

Abstract

Rice sheath blight disease caused by Rhizoctonia solani is considered a distractive soil-borne disease of rice production worldwide. The study aimed to determine the causal organism of sheath blight symptoms in Egyptian rice fields. Sheath blight symptoms were first observed in a small area during 2013, 2014 and 2016 seasons, later in a wide area of rice fields in 2016 to 2018 seasons. Pathogen identification was carried out based on morphological traits and internal transcribed spacer sequencing. Thirty-six isolates were identified as R. solani fungus. The isolates exhibited a wide range of variability in their morphological traits and virulence patterns. Five isolates were sequenced and aligned with Chinese isolates with 75–100% identity. This is the first report of R. solani AG-1 IA that associated with rice sheath blight in Egypt. Initiate a breeding program for disease resistance and integrated disease management procedures are important to keep the disease under control.

Keywords:

• Rice sheath blight
• Rhizoctonia solani AG-1 IA
• identification
• ITS region
• Egypt

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to Rice Research & Training Center at Sakha, Kafrelshiekh for helping in sample collection and Plant Pathology Research Institute at Giza for the confirmation of pathogen identification and the agreement for publication of this manuscript.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.