Morphological and molecular characterization of Fusarium solani infecting tomato

Tomato crop is affected by several diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, virus, phytoplasma and viriods, of which, fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici or Fusarium solani is a major threat for tomato production in the country. Tomato plant showing symptoms typical to fusarium wilt symptoms was collected and processed by standard tissue isolation method and designated as fsK isolate. Microscopic studies on fsK isolate revealed single celled hyaline microconidia and 3–5 septate hyaline macroconidia typical to genera, Fusarium. Thirty days old tomato (cv. Arka Vikas) seedlings inoculated with FSK isolate produced the typical Fusarium wilt symptoms. Further, to confirm the taxonomic position of the species, total DNA was isolated from the Fusarium FSK isolate, were subjected to PCR amplification using Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) region primers (Approximately 650 kb). The amplified ITS product was sequenced directly using same primers. The ITS region nucleotide sequence and phylogenetic analysis revealed that, FSK isolate infecting tomato isolated in the current study is an isolate of Fusarium solani.