Physiological and pathological variability of Botrytis cinerea causing botrytis grey mould of Himachal Pradesh in India

Botrytis grey mould (BGM) is observed in the fields and one of the most important plant pathogen because of the detrimental ramification on the ornamental flowers and vegetables every year in Himachal Pradesh, India. The focus of this work is to study the physiological and pathological variability was studies in fifteen isolates of Botrytis cinerea causing botrytis grey mould of gladiolus collected from different agro climatic area of Himachal Pradesh. This research aimed to explore the effect of different factors which affects the growth of Botrytis cinerea. Moreover, to find out the pathological variability among the isolates. The optimum temperature for the best mycelial growth of B. cinerea were 20 °C and thereafter it decreased gradually up to 30°C. The production of sclerotia was affected by the distinct temperature regimes and was maximum at temperature 10 °C and 15 °C. Furthermore, also observed that the glucose (fructose) and nitrogen (asparagines)sources were to enhance the mycelial growth of B. cinerea. Maximum disease severity was shown by KBC-16 (58.78%) on Jester cultivar of gladiolus whereas, minimum severity was given by KBC-5 (34.47%). Under in vitro conditions, it is observed that on fifth day the flowers were completely deteriorated with the fungal growth.