An improved technique of inoculation for the artificial production of sugarcane smut and development of uniform diseased cane material
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Authors
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S.K. DUTTAMAJUMDER
Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research, Lucknow 226 002
Keywords:
Inoculation technique, smut, Ustilago scitaminea, sugarcane, screeningAbstract
Ustilago scitaminea, the causal organism of whip smut of sugarcane is basically a disease of meristematic tissue and it proliferates in young and actively growing tissues. It enters the healthy sugarcane plant through lateral buds, overcoming the barriers of bud scales. With the germination of an infected bud the fungus also gets activated and grows along with the apical meristem and later on manifests itself by converting the apical meristem in a very characteristic manner i.e., by producing a typical whip like smutty structure. Screening of sugarcane genotypes against smut is mainly done either by inoculating the setts (planting material) by dipping in the spore suspension of smut or by painting the buds with the spore suspension at the time ofplanting. Inoculated setts are planted in the field for germination and symptom expression. Every sugarcane pathologist faces problems of getting enough uniform smut infected sugarcane planting material (setts) for carrying out other experiments. Taking the analogy from the grassy shoot disease (GSD), where the mother shoot feeds the grassy lanky albinoid tillers, this technique was developed by inoculating the underground buds of the cane at the time of tillering, taking advantage of the canes own physiology of tillering and grand growth. In a highly susceptible variety like CoLk 7901 the success rate of infection was 83% with the new method compared with the common sett inoculation method that produced an infection level of only 36%. Moreover, the systematically infected tillers produced at the grand growth stage of sugarcane were excellent experimental material and thus could circumvent the lack of uniform infecting material for conducting other studies.
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