Enhancement of Chitinase Enzyme Producing Ability of Trichoderma viride Mutants and Dual Culture Studies against Soil Borne Plant Pathogen Sclerotium rolfsii.

In an attempt to construct superior Trichodermaviride isolates for improvement of chitinase enzyme productivity, induction ofmutants was applied. After application of different concentration of Ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) and Hydroxyl amine (HA) treatments on T. viride, TVME1 a, TVME 1b, TVME 1c, TVME 2a, TVME 2b, TVME 2c, TVME 3a, TVME 3b, TVME 3c, TVME 4a, TVME 4b,TVME 4c, TVMH 1a, TVMH 1b, TVMH 1c, TVMH 2a, TVMH2b, TVMH 2c, TVMH 3a, TVMH 3b, TVMH 3c, TVMH 4a, TVMH 4b and TVMH 4cmutants 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.Statisticallysignificant differences were obtained among the mutants over control (mother culture). The effective treatment was T₂₀ (TVMH 3b) i.e. 63.78% which was at par with T₂₂ (TVMH 4a), T₂₄(TVMH 4c), T₁₆(TVMH 2a), T₁₃(TVMH 1a) and T₉ (TVME3c) i.e. 63.32%, 63.27%, 62.32%, 62.06% and 60.78% respectively. The lowest per cent growth inhibition of Fusariu msolaniwas exerted in T₃ (TVME 1c) i.e. 49.95%.With this background in the present investigation an attempt was made to mutate Trichodermaviride with interest to enhance their biocontrol efficacy.