included about basic and important symptoms produced by plant pathogenic fungi, and their simple description. this will be helpful to find out the basic symptoms of fungal diseases

1. Symptoms of fungal disease
N. H. SHANKAR REDDY
1st, Ph.D. (Plant Pathology)
Annamalai University

2. Rust
• Infected plants will most of the time
have many small lesions on stems or
leaves, usually a red, orange to brown in
colour
• Eg- Wheat stem rust – Puccinia
graminis tritici

3. Smut
• Mycelium or black spores on seeds,
in the form of galls or entire seeds
are replaced by black colour smut
spores.
• Eg – Corn smut - Ustilago maydis

4. Mildews
• Mycelium, fruiting bodies and necrotic
tissue.
• Powdery Mildews – White colour powder
growth appears on surface of leaves and
cracking symptoms on fruits (grapes)
eg – Grapes Pm – Erysiphe necator
• Downey Mildews – Downy growth on
leaves and mummification of fruits
(Grapes)
eg – Grapes Dm – Plasmopara viticola

5. Root rots
• Rot and disintegration of fleshy
leaves, roots, tubers and fruit.
• Dry root rot – Macrophomina
phaseolina

6. Blights
• Rapid generalized browning and
death of leaves, floral organs,
stems and branches.
• Eg – Botrytis blight – Botrytis sp

7. Leaf spots
• localized lesions consisting of
necrotic and collapsed tissue.
Leaf spots can vary in size
and are generally round and
concentric.
• The typical fungal leaf spot
will have a “bulls-eye-like”
appearance
• Eg – Alternaria leaf spot –
Alternaria solani

8. Wilts
• Generalized loss of turgidity as in
vascular wilts.
• Eg – Chilli fusarium wilt – Fusarium
solani

9. Cankers
• a localized necrotic lesion on woody
tissue, often sunken
• Eg - Apple European Canker - Nectria
galligena

10. Anthracnose
• an ulcer -like lesion that can be
can appear on the fruit, flowers
and stems of the host
• Eg- Mango anthracnose -
Colletotrichum gloeosporioides

11. Damping Off
• A rapid collapse and death of very
young seedling. Either the seed rots
before emergence or the seedling rots
at the soil line and falls over and dies.
• This is off 2 types,
i) pre emergence and
ii) post emergence damping off
Eg – Damping of vegetables – Pythium
aphanidermatum

12. Scab
• localized lesion on host fruit leaves
tubers and other plant parts.
• Eg – Apple scab – Venturia
inaequalis

13. Die back
• Progressive death of shoots and
twigs generally starting at the tip of
the infected plant parts
• Eg - Dieback of Apple – Monilinia sp

14. Galls
• Enlarged parts of plant organs, usually
caused by excessive multiplication or
enlargement of plant cells
• Eg – Club root of cabbage –
Plasmodiophora brassicae

15. Leaf Curls
• Curling, thickening & distortion of
leaves
• Eg – Peach leaf curl – Taphrina
deformans