Effect of Chitosan on Morphological Change Of Colletotrichum capsici (Sydow) Butler & Bisby

Abstract

Worldwide, postharvest losses have been estimated at 50% and much of this is due to fungal and bacterial infection. One of the important funguses that attack the postharvest product is fungus Colletotrichum capsici (Sydow) Butler & Bisby. This fungus caused anthracnose disease (Figure 1 and 2). The symptom of anthracnose is black lesion, usually sunken caused by imperfect fungi that produce conidia in ecervuli. Conidia are borne on acervuli, witch are erumpent, cushion-like masses of conidiophores. The conidia are hyaline, one celled, avoid to oblong. The mycelium of pathogen is septate , inter-and intracellular. Acervuli and stroma in the stem are hemispherical and 70-120 μ in diameter. Setae are scattered and dark brown. The tips are light brown and several septate and up to 150 μ in length. Conidiophores are aseptate and unbranched. Conidia in mass appear light pinkish in color. Conidia are borne singly at the tips of the conidiophores. Individually they are hyaline, unicellular and caved with narrowed ends. These measure 7-28 x 3-4 μ. This is the characteristic oil globule in the center of each conidium. Conidia germinate in water within four hours. The germ tube soon forms an appressorium (Mehrorta, 1980).