Rekha Arya

Department of Botany, Tikaram Kanya Mahavidyalaya, Aligarh-202001 (India) e-mail : aryas3@rediffmail.com, drrekhaarya@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Studies were made to investigate the effect of different carbon sources on the growth and antagonistic properties of two well known fungi Epicoccum purpurascens and Penicillium vermiculatum. Selected carbon sources were sucrose, arabinose, glucose, fructose, rhamnose, xylose and starch. Mycelial growth and phenols in the culture filtrates of fungi were estimated. Cumulative hatching and percentage mortality of root knot nematode larvae (Meloidogyne incognita) was observed at 2, 3, 5 and 7 days in the culture filtrates of fungi to find out the effect of various nutritive sources on the antagonistic ability of E.purpurascens and P.vermiculatum. Results indicated varying effect of nutritive sources on the mycelial growth, sucrose and starch were most preferred and xylose was least preferred source for E.purpurascens and P. vermiculatum respectively. Hatching and mortality also varied with the different carbon sources. Though all sources proved inhibitory, most effective were arabinose in case of E.purpurascens and fructose for P.vermiculatum. There was observed a direct correlation between the amount of phenols in the culture filtrate of fungi and its adverse effect on the hatching and mortality of larvae of root knot nematode.

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