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ARS Home » Plains Area » College Station, Texas » Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center » Crop Germplasm Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #311673
Title: Mycoflora analysis of hybrid sorghum grain collected from different locations in South Texas

Author
item Prom, Louis
item PERUMAL, RAMASAMY - Kansas State University
item JIN, ZHEYU - Academy Of Agricultural Science
item RADWAN, GHADA - Texas A&M University
item ISAKEIT, THOMAS - Texas A&M University
item MAGILL, CLINT - Texas A&M University

Submitted to: American Journal of Experimental Agriculture
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/14/2014
Publication Date: 1/1/2015
Citation: Prom, L.K., Perumal, R., Jin, Z., Radwan, G., Isakeit, T., Magill, C. 2015. Mycoflora analysis of hybrid sorghum grain collected from different locations in South Texas. American Journal of Experimental Agriculture. 6(1):1-6.

Interpretive Summary: Worldwide, grain mold is the most important sorghum disease, especially in areas with wet conditions late in the growing season. Seeds infected with grain molding fungi have lower yield and poor seed quality. In order to develop cost-effective control methods, it is important to know which of the number of fungal organisms associated with the disease are present in a particular area or region. In this work, a number of fungal organisms were found to contaminate sorghum seeds collected from fields in south Texas, and the most common was the fungus Alternaria. Thus, planting sorghum hybrids/lines that are resistant to either Alternaria or a combination of grain molding fungi will increase productivity and profitability of the crop in this region.

Technical Abstract: Mycoflora characterization of sorghum grain collected from different locations in Texas during the 2008 and 2009 growing seasons revealed Alternaria spp. as the dominant genus. At the beginning of grain development to soft dough stage, Alternaria spp. accounted for 66% of the recovered fungal species in 2008 and 55.8% in 2009. At grain maturity in 2009, Alternaria spp. represented 66.8% of the recovered fungal species across locations, followed by Bipolaris spp. (12.8%), C. lunata (6.8%) and Fusarium spp. (6.8%). Other fungal taxa recovered from sorghum grain included F. semitectum, F. thapsinum, Aspergillus spp., Phoma spp., Colletotrichum spp., and Rhizopus spp. In conclusion, Alternaria spp. was the most dominant fungal genus recovered from sorghum grain collected from different locations in southern Texas. However, there is little or no information on the reaction of sorghum hybrids in the region against Alternaria spp.