Morphological, molecular and pathogenic characterization of Rhizoctonia bataticola isolates causing dry root rot of chickpea in Turkey

Abstract

Nineteen chickpea isolates of R. bataticola were obtained from different locations of Turkey in 2016–2017. The isolates were examined for their morphology, genetic and virulence characteristics. The colony color of 10 isolates was grayish black and rest of them was black. Eleven isolates had appressed colony texture, while 3 isolates had velvety and 5 isolates had fluffy. Eight isolates produced aerial mycelium and the other did not. Eight isolates were categorized as fast growing, 8 isolates were categorized as medium growing and 3 isolates were categorized as slow growing. The mean sclerotial sizes of the isolates varied between 65.6 and 127.4 µm. The sclerotia of the 11 isolates were round, 3 isolates were ovoid and 5 isolates were irregular shaped. The size of the PCR products varied from 435 to 518bp and the isolates showed between 99.61 and 100% identity with the reference. The isolates were highly variable in their morphological, molecular and virulence characteristics.