Detection of Seed Mycoflora Associated with Indian Mustard (Brassica juncea L.) by Various Seed Health Testing Methods

Abstract

India is one of the major oilseed crops grower. Mustard (Brassica juncea L.) is an important oilseed crop second after groundnut. Mustard is majorly grown in India which carry many seedborne diseases which causes not only seed rot, seedling blight but also reduction in quality of seed parameters which results qualitative and quantitative yield losses. In standard agar plate seed germination per centage ranged from 78.50 to 85.00% and in Modified PDA method ranged from 70.00 to 78.00%. In standard agar plate and Modified PDA method highest per cent of infected seed was observed in Pusa bold 74.25% and 64.50%, respectively. In two seed health testing methods (SHT) were evaluated standard agar plate show higher seed mycoflora than modified PDA method. All two methods were found effective and reliable for the detection of seedborne fungi such as Alternaria brassicae, Fusarium oxysporum, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Rhizoctonia solani, Penicillium sp. and Rhizopus stolonifer isolated from mustard seeds of varieties Krishna, Kranti, Local and Pusa bold.