Inhibition of germination and seedling growth of rice by culture filtrate of aflatoxigenic aspergillus flavus

Abstract EN

Nayak, S., U.

Dhua, C.

Sengupta, S.

Samanta and S.R.

Dhua.

2015.

Inhibition of germination and seedling growth of rice by culture filtrate of aflatoxigenic Aspergillus flavus.

Arab Journal of Plant Protection, 33 (1) : 93-95.

Aflatoxin B1 produced by Aspergillus flavus causes damage to crops and cereals including rice by inhibiting seed germination, elongation of the hypocotyls or roots and alters many physiological processes in developing seedlings.

Rice cultivar Savitri is a popular high yielding variety in the eastern coastal part of India, where favorable growth condition for A.

flavus exist and the harvesting practice of the farmers usually result in the infection of rice crops with this fungus.

Hence, the effect of culture filtrate of A flavus on cv.

Savitri (CR 210-1009) was investigated.

Seed germination, root shoot length and root shoot weight of Savitri seedlings were drastically reduced by dipping the seeds in the undiluted and diluted (50% and 25 %) culture filtrate.

In the case of undiluted culture filtrate, seed germination rate and seedlings mortality rate were 18 % and 75 % compared to 70 % and 0.00% for the untreated control, respectively.

The residual seed weight was lower (358.9mg) in the case of untreated control and higher in case of undiluted filtrate (521 mg).

Results indicated that the culture filtrate containing the aflatoxin, interfered with the physiological processes which prevented the use of endosperm by the developing seedlings.