In February, 1979, The author noticed stems of Solanum tuberosum L. infected by a fungus causing severe necrosis in his kitchen garden. On examination, the causal organism of the disease was identified as Mucor heimalis Wehmer. Earlier S. tuberosum has not been found to get infected by Mucor heimalis in India and this is new report.
The disease appeared as small moist area on the stem just above the soil. The lesion enlarged radially and showed fluffy growth of fungus within a week followed by stem necrosis and ultimate death of plants desiccation. The pathogenicity tests were carried out as follows.
The stem of 15 days old potato plants were separately sprayed with spore suspension of freshly sporulating culture of Mucor heimalis without, and after making the injuries on the test plants. The sprayed plants were incubated in the field conditions. After 10 days, the characteristic disease spots were found on the stems in the plants which were injured before inoculation. Reisolation from the artificially infected plants gave Mucor heimalis, thus, the pathogenic nature of the fungus was confirmed by inoculation tests providing Koch's postulates.
Cited this as: Kanaujia R.S. (1979): Notes on new fungal disease of Solanum tuberosum. Indian Phytopathology. 32(4):611-612.
