The cultural and morphological variability among Rhizoctonia solani isolates causing banded leaf and sheath blight of maize in Indonesia

Banded leaf and sheath blight caused by Rhizoctonia solani
Kuhn has become a constraint on maize production in Indonesia. Forty-one isolates from 11 provinces in
Indonesia were characterized based on cultural and mor-
phological characteristics. Most isolates were characterized
with sparse fluffy hyphae and pale yellow mycelium. They
were categorized into two, three and four groups based on
hyphal width, their growth rate and sclerotia production,
respectively. The number of sclerotia was highly variable
across different isolates. They were arranged in subcentral-
peripheral, irregular, scattered, and peripheral manner on
the Petri dish. The UPGMA analysis showed four major clus-
ters, designated as cluster I, II, III, and IV at 0.75 similarity coefficient according to cultural and morphological charac-ters. Cluster III was the largest cluster comprising 34 iso-lates; while cluster I, II, and IV comprised of four, one, andtwo isolate, respectively. Our results indicated that the cul-tural and morphological variability among R. solani isolates in Indonesia was not related to geographic origins.