Morphological and cultural characterization of colletotrichum capsici, incitant of blight of chickpea in Andhra Pradesh, India

In Andhra Pradesh, Chickpea is severely affected by wilt (Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. ciceri) and dry root rot (Rhizoctonia bataticola). In addition to these two diseases, Colletotrichum blight occurred in severe form during rabi 2009 and 2010 due to heavy unusual rains, which resulted in crop failure in many areas leading to re-sowing of the crops. Hence studies were conducted on Colletotrichum blight of chickpea, where a total of seven isolates were collected from major chickpea growing areas of Kurnool, Anantapur, Prakasam and Kadapa districts of Andhra Pradesh. The pathogen was isolated from infected plants and various morphological and cultural characteristics like size and shape of conidia, size of setae, chlamydospores, colony color, colony diameter, sectoring in the culture, mycelia dry weight and sporulation were studied and a great variability was observed among the isolates.