World Journal of
Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences

DETECTION OF BACTERIAL WILT PATHOGEN IN GROUNDNUT CROPS GROWN IN RAJASTHAN

Ramesh Chand Meena, *Ashwani Kumar Verma and Mohan Singh

ABSTRACT

Bacterial wilt of groundnut caused by Ralstonia solanacearum is an important disease characterized by hasty wilting following death of entire plant without showing any yellowing or spotting of leaves. The bacterial wilt is an extremely destructive soil borne disease of groundnut. It appeared as rapid and serious wilting symptoms in the host. The pathogen entered through different wounds and easily disseminated through infected biological material, soil, contaminated irrigation water, surface water and farm equipments and could survive for many years in association with alternating hosts. It is a broadly distributed and much diversified soil borne pathogen having an unusual broad host range with long-term survivable ability. In the present study, wilt incidence, distribution, losses, symptoms and their epidemiology were investigated and field surveys was done to evaluate the severity and disease incidence in the different regions of Rajasthan. Sixty bacterial isolates were derived from wilted samples, and identified by the biochemical and pathogenicity characterization. Among 60 isolates, forty five isolates were categorized as Race 2 biovar III and the remaining 15 isolates belonged to biovars I and V based on sugars utilization. Pathogenicity assay suggested that out of 60 isolates, 19 isolates were highly pathogenic, 24 isolates showed 70- 80% wilt incidence, 11 isolates showed 50% wilt, and 6 isolates were found non-pathogenic.

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