Percentage distribution of foliicolous fungi of Maharashtra, India with respect to their disease symptoms: a novel study

Fungal spores are continuously deposited on the leaf surfaces by wind impaction, sedimentation and rain wash-out from the atmosphere and splash-dispersal. They reside and act as asymptomatic mutualists, benign commensals or latent pathogens. A slight imbalance in this relation can lead to pathogenic phase of the fungi, resulting in a variety of symptoms on leaves viz. discoloration, blight, sooty-spots, shot- hole, tar spot, powdery mildew, black mildews, downy mildews, rust, smuts, galls, sooty moulds and so on. With a view of studying the foliicolous fungi, a project entitled “Foliicolous fungi of Maharashtra” was undertaken and various areas were visited in different forest ecosystems of Maharashtra. A total of 429 isolates belonging 336 fungal species and intra specific taxa recorded during this study were categorized on the basis of foliage symptoms caused by them. Out of the entire recorded fungal taxa, 19.81% fungal species cause black mildews; 5.83% fungal species belong to only cercosporoid fungi causing leaf spots; 2.10% fungal species incite powdery mildews; 10.96% cause sooty molds; 1.63% incite anthracnose; 0.23% incite leaf smut; 3.50% incite leaf rust infection; 19.35 % incite leaf spots; 11.42% cause leaf blight/canker; 0.47% fungal species incite tar spots; 1.86% incite wilt diseases and the remaining 22.84% were found to be associated with leaves as facultative parasites/saprophytes/Hyperparasites. Therefore, above studies were designed to characterize foliicolous fungi that would further help in the conservation and management of biological resources and also increase the agriculture wealth of the nation.