Virulence Diversity of Rhizoctonia solani Isolates Collected from Maize Against Rice and Bajra
Twenty seven Rhizoctonia solani isolates collected from maize and one isolate from rice were inoculated on to 55 days old cv. BPT-5204 and 30 days old bajra cv. HHB-67 using sheath inoculation method. The virulence diversity among the isolates revealed that the isolate RS16 from Krishna district recorded maximum Percent disease index (PDI) and minimum by RS13 isolate from Warangal district on rice, while maximum relative lesion was recorded by the isolate RS28 (rice) and least by RS2 from Medak district. In case of bajra, the isolate RS11 from Khammam district recorded maximum PDI and relative lesion length, whereas the isolate RS21 from Guntur district recorded minimum PDI. The rice isolate (RS28) had 2.6 days latent period in bajra and 2.0 days with respect to original host crop rice indicating that the isolate is equally virulent to that of maize isolates RS11, RS12 and RS16.