A Quantitative and Confined Inoculation Technique to Assess the Leaf Blight in Makhana Caused by Alternaria alternata
摘要
A quantitative and confined inoculation technique with hypodermic needle was developed to study exclusively about the Alternaria leaf blight infection in makhana. The method is precise and produced higher number of disease lesions with a little inoculum. A single conidium was able to induce the disease and produced local lesions. The experiment was conducted with eight different isolates of A. alternata in different conidial loads including, 1,5,10 & 20 conidia/inoculum drop. Highest infection response in terms of lesion size, number lesions, and disease progression was observed in case of the isolate Aab02. Contrastingly, lowest infection response was observed in case of Aab06. Among all the study isolates, Aab02 was more virulent and was induced, largest lesion size (11.5 mm), highest number lesions (32.2) and severe disease progression of 16.7 mm (lesion size in 72 h). The procedure was very precise and infection was induced even with a single conidium. This hypodermic needle inoculation technique was designed and employed first time in makhana. Further, an exclusive disease rating scale was developed for Alternaria leaf blight in makhana.