Isolation and Molecular Characterization of Collar Rot Causing Pathogen Aspergillus niger on Groundnut in Rajasthan, India

Groundnut, a major pulse crop also grown as an oil seed over 90 countries worldwide, is important to the Indian economy. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are main producers groundnut. In 2021, disease incidence with symptoms similar collar rot was reported from Jaipur district Rajasthan. fungal strain isolated region susceptible groundnut variety TAG-24. White colonies mycelia were observed in 3-4 days which eventually turned dark brown color. Pathogenicity tests performed on healthy developed within 7-8 inoculation. Sequencing PCR products amplified the18S rRNA (NS1F-NS8R) ITS (NS1F-ITS4R) primers indicated 99.4% 100% identity respectively reference Aspergillus niger CBS 554.65 (ATCC 16888) NCBI-Genebank database. Based morphological molecular characteristics, pathogen identified submitted Gene Bank accession nos. ON954789 OQ653131. culture NCMR-NCCS (accession number MCC 9892).