FUNGAL DISEASES IN SOME FOREST NURSERIES OF BULDANA DISTRICT, MAHARASHTRA STATE (INDIA)

Abstract In this survey we were focussed on ten plant species which are generally raised in forest nurseries across Buldana region of Maharashtra state of India. The survey was completed in between duration of the five months i.e., from September 2019 to February 2020 in multiple times. The main purpose of our study in this research was to find the seedling or nursery diseases of the targeted common tree species. The plant species in this were Acacia auriculiformis, Aegle marmelos Albizia lebbeck, Azadirachta indica, Cassia fistula, Dalbergia latifolia, Delonix regia, Gmelina arborea, Tectona grandis and Terminalia bellirica. The Common Fungal infections we recorded were includes seven different pathogenic fungi which were caused less or more infection level in different plant species. From this infection study we measured total percentage of diseased seedlingsof each forest plant species. Out of all these observations noted that the highest rate of infection in Tectona grandis. The lowest rate was recorded in Albizia lebbeck. The average percentage of the diseased seedlings were 29.13%. The commonly recorded pathogenic mycoflora includes Alternaria alternata, Curvularia, Fusarium, Phoma glomerata, Colletotrichum, Phomopsis and Pseudocercospora. To find out remaining fungal diseases in same plant species along with various geographical and variety of climatic conditions regions creating scope for future studies