Association of Alternaria spp. with cereals and millets

Abstract

Cereals and millets (small grains) are the most important sources of food for human being. These crops are affected from the infection of seven species of Alternaria causing leaf spots and blight. Alternaria triticina and A. triticola are especially found associated with wheat crop alongwith causation of black point due to A. tenuissima. Stack burn of rice is caused by A. padwickii, a serious disease of this staple crop which occurs from seedling to maturity stage of the plants. A. alternata, a plurivorous fungus infects jowar (sorghum) Bajra (pearl millet), barely and kodon while A. infectoria causes leaf spot/blight and seed discolouration of wheat, barely, oat and rye. The symptomatology of diseases caused by different species of Alternaria has been described and the comparative morphological characters of 6 species of Alternaria have also been given in this review for their identification and differentiation among them.