Home • Macrophomina phaseolina MS6
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Stereomicrograph of sclerotia that exists in soil and crop residue. Islam et al. BMC Genomics 2012 13:493 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-13-493
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During early rainy season, hyphae penetrate the plant cell wall and produce disease symptoms. Islam et al. BMC Genomics 2012 13:493 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-13-493

The genome sequence and gene predictions of Macrophomina phaseolina were not determined by the JGI, but were downloaded from NCBI and have been published (Islam et al., 2012). Please note that this copy of the genome is not maintained by the author and is therefore not automatically updated.

Macrophomina phaseolina is a soil and seed borne fungus and it can infect more than 500 cultivated and wild plant species. It causes seedling blight, charcoal rot, dry root rot, wilt, leaf blight, stem blight and pre-emergence and post-emergence damping-off, root and stem rot of different cultivated and wild plant species. The fungus can remain viable for more than 4 years in soil and crop residue as sclerotia. Under favorable conditions, hyphae germinate from the sclerotia and infect the roots and/or stem of the host plant by penetrating in the plant cell wall through mechanical pressure and/or chemical softening. The disease progresses from leaf yellowing to wilting and ultimately plant death.

The disease development is favoured with high temperature (30-35 °C) followed by moisture stress but in case of jute and corn it prefers the hot, moist and humid condition. It is difficult to control M. phaseolina due to its thick-walled resistant hyphal mat called sclerotia persistence in the soil and plant debris. Recently, there has been a worldwide report in increased incidence of the pathogen on diverse crop species which could reflect a wider appreciation of the importance of this disease to crop production in drought prone regions

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