Cultural and morphological variability studies on three different media viz., Potato Dextrose Agar, Richard’s Synthetic Agar and Czapek’s Dox Agar revealed considerable variation among the isolates of A. burnsii indicated the existence of variability in the pathogen. Moreover, Potato Dextrose Agar and Czapek’s Dox Agar were found as an excellent media to support the growth and spore formation of isolates of A. burnsii, respectively. Initially, the fungal growth was light green, sometimes whitish green septate mycelial growth and finally grey to black in color with dirty white to brownish colony margin and fluffy radial, plain irregular radial and fluffy knotting growth pattern on three different media. Among fifteen isolates of A. burnsii, distinct differences in terms of conidial length, breadth, beak length and number of septa were recorded. The average conidial length varied from to and breadth ranges from to µm with beak length of to µm. The transverse septa varied from 1 to 6 and longitudinal septa varied from to 0 to 3, respectively. In the present studies, glaring differences in conidial size were noticed among the isolates even when same medium was used for the growth of the isolates. It can be assumed that variation in the isolates may be inherent since isolates were collected from diverse agroclimatic zones of Gujarat. Hence, these variations in the conidial size indicated the existence of variability in this pathogen. | Cultural and morphological variability among the isolates of alternaria burnsii (Uppal, Patel and Kamat) causing blight of cumin
