Pathogenicity and Molecular Characterization of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides Causing Anthracnose Disease in Anthurium

Anthurium is an excellent cut flower crop commercially cultivated throughout the world. Anthracnose or spadix rot disease leads to massive flower loss to anthurium growing farmers. Survey was conducted for anthurium anthracnose disease during the year 2017-2018 in anthurium growing areas of Tamil Nadu, India. Colletotrichum gloeosporioides cultures (10 isolates) were isolated and pathogenicity test was proved by several artificial inoculation methods. Among this, pin prick plus spraying spore suspension method has recorded the highest per cent disease index of 64.38 on anthurium plants. Molecular analysis based on obtained sequences (MH479426) of the rDNA internal transcribed spacers (ITS1 and ITS4) resulted more than 92 per cent identical to ITS sequence of C. gloeosporioides published in GenBank database. The molecular study confirmed that anthracnose disease of anthurium is caused by C. gloeosporioides. The molecular-based clustering demonstrated the genetic relationships of the isolates and species of Colletotrichum and indicated that ITS rDNA sequence data were potentially useful in taxonomic species determination.