Morphological, physiological and pathological variations among the isolates of Fusarium moniliforme Sheldon causing pokkah boeng of sugarcane

An experiment was carried out during 2012–14 at CCR (PG) Collage, Muzaffarnagar to study the behavior of Pokkah boeng disease of sugarcane. During survey, incidence of pokkah boeng disease was noticed up to 29.8% on different varieties at various locations. Ninty percent pokkah boeng affected cane crops were found to recover after a certain period without spray of any fungicide. Cultures of Fusarium moniliforme Sheldon (the causal organism of Pokkah boeng disease) were raised from 12 samples collected from infected plants and maintained in the laboratory for further studies. The size of macro and micro-conidia ranged from 12.4–46.8 × 2.4–6.8 μm and 4.6–9.9 × 1.8–4.8 μm in different straints, respectively. All the conidia were found sickle/sickle-cell, hyaline and septate. Out of 12, 4 isolates (viz., Fm122, Fm126, Fm129, Fm1212) were found more virulent than others.