A longitudinal study on morphogenetic diversity of pathogenic Rhizoctonia solani from sugar beet and dry beans of western Nebraska

Root and stem rot caused by Rhizoctonia solani is a serious fungal disease of sugar beet and dry bean production in Nebraska. Objective was to characterize morpho-genetic diversity of 38 Rhizoctonia solani isolated from sugar beet and dry beans fields in western Nebraska over 10 years. Classical morphological features and ISSR marker was used to study the morphogenetic diversity. Fungal colonies were morphologically diverse in shapes, aerial hyphae formation and colony, sclerotia color. Marker analysis using nineteen polymorphic ISSR marker showed polymorphic bands ranged from 15 - 28 with molecular weight 100bp to 3kb. Polymorphic loci ranged from 43.26 – 92.88%. Nei genetic distance within the population was ranged 0.03 –0.09 and Shannon diversity index varied from 0.24 – 0.28. AMOVA analysis based on ΦPT values showed 87% variation within and 13% among the population with statistical significance. Majority of the isolates from sugar beet showed nearby association within the population. There was significant number of cross crop clustering suggesting their broad pathogenicity. Isolates were grouped into three different clusters in UPGMA based cluster analysis using marker information. Interestingly, there was no specific geographical correlation between the isolates. PCA analysis showed randomized distribution among isolates from same geographical origin. Morphological characteristics showed crop-specific two distinct groups of isolates with few exceptions. While, genetic diversity showed two distinct group of isolates, one crop specific and one with wide pathogenicity. This information may help in molecular pathotyping of the pathogen for better disease management.