Morphological diversity of Ganoderma along different land uses in Central and West Sulawesi

Abstract

Ganoderma is a saprophytic and phytopathogenic fungus that are distributed worldwide. Ganoderma is a threat to farmers of hardwood crops such as industrial forests wood, palm oil plantations, and cocoa plantations. In addition, Ganoderma is also cultivated as herbal medicine. Ganoderma diversity is not well understood, especially in Indonesia’s tropical rain forests and monospecific plantations. This study aims to identify the diversity of Ganoderma with a phenotypic approach. Ganoderma basidiocarps were isolated from hardwood plants in the rainforest, cacao agroforestry, and palm oil plantations in Central and West Sulawesi. The results showed the morphological differences of the basidiocarps collected from different land uses. Most Ganoderma was found associated with woody plants in the rainforest with higher diversity than found in palm oil and cacao agroforestry. Morphological identification of Ganoderma reveals five different basidiocarps from the rainforest. There were two different basidiocarps identified from cacao agroforestry, and there was only one morphothype of Ganoderma was found in palm oil plantations. Ganoderma is more commonly found in fallen dead trees in forest areas based on the host preferences. Meanwhile, in cacao agroforestry and palm oil, Ganoderma was found on living trees. This preference indicates the nature of Ganoderma as saprophyte and plant pathogen.