Prevalence of seed borne pathogens of ornamental plants grown in Bangladesh

We investigate the prevalence of pathogens associated with seeds of some selected local flowers namely cosmos, marigold, and silvia and corms of gladiolus collected from three different locations (Jessore, Savar and Gazipur) were recorded. Germination test for the collected seeds were performed and pathogens were isolated and identified. The seeds from Jessore were better than the others considering incidence of fungi in all other seeds tested. Silvia from Jessore was the lowest affected seed and marigold from savar was the highest affected seed. Fusarium sp., Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger, Rhizopus stolonifer, Alternaria alternate, Penicillium, Curvularia, Chaetomium and Cladosporium sp. comprising 9 species were found to be associated with the flower seed sample. The percent of seed borne infection ranged 4-28%, 5- 32.5%, 3-29% and 11- 25% in case of cosmos, marigold, silvia and gladious, respectively. Silvia was the lowest affected seed (13.5, 18.42 and 8.42 average incidence) and marigold was the highest affected seed (12.18, 19.25 and 11.5% average incidence) collected from Gazipur, Savar, and Jessore, respectively. The result showed that the highest percentage germination of cosmos (86.5%), marigold (77.5%), silvia (54.5%) obtained from Jessore and gladiolus (80%) obtained from Gazipur. So, the seeds collected from Jessore were best germination and seed health quality and can be suggest for using the commercial cultivation of ornamental plants