Chitinase production ability of Trichoderma viride mutants and their efficacy against Fusarium udum

In an attempt to develop superior Trichoderma viride isolates for improvement in chitinase enzyme productivity, induction of mutants was applied. After application of different concentrations of Ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) and Hydroxyl amine (HA) treatments on T. viride mutants were obtained. These mutants were tested for their chitinase productivity. TVME 4c, TVME 4b, TVME 3c, TVMH 4a, TVMH 4c, TVMH 4b mutants proved to be the highest producer of chitinase enzyme, since it produced 0.63, 0.62, 0.62, 0.61, 0.58 and 0.57 enzyme units respectively, greater thanthe mother culture. The potential in respect to inhibitory activities of mutants reflected significant differences against the growth of Fusarium udum at seven days of incubation over control (mother culture). The highly efficient mutant was T9 (TVME 3c) i.e. 70.67% which was at par with T12 (TVME4c), T19 (TVMH 3a) and T22 (TVMH 4a) i.e. 70.44%, 70.3% and 69.81% respectively. The lowest per cent growth inhibition of Fusarium udum was found by T17 (TVMH 2b) i.e. 62.21%. In the present investigation an attempts were made to mutate Trichoderma viride with interest to enhance their biocontrol efficacy.