Introduction

Air consist of a mixture of permanent gases and water in different proportions, solid particles, pollen- grains and fungal spores. Aerobiology is a scientific discipline which deals with the studies of organisms or part of the organisms present in the air. Leaf surface is the plateform of the numerous fungal spores present in the air. during suitable microhabitat these spores are settled down on this having plateform and try to colonised. After settle down fungal spores, a traingular relationship  appear among the micro-organisms, leaf surface and the environment.  Aerobiological investigation have been carried out with special reference to diseases on crops, vegetable and fruits etc. Tilak (1985) discuss the aerobiology and cereal crop. Tilak and Babu (1981) discuss the aerobiological approaches to leaf spot disease of bajra. Study of the leaf surface mycoflora in different crops and vegetables, done by the many scientists. Leben – (1961) studied micro-organism on Cucumber seedling. Navneet and Mehrotra (1987) studied phylloplane mycroflora of potato leaves in relation to climatic factors. Sahu and Tiwari (1994) studied arispora and leaf surface microflora of cauliflower.

Materials and Methods

 Ocimum  sanctum plant grown in hindu families in our country. For the study of the air spora, Rotorod sampler was used. A rotorod  sampler in which instead of moving the spores in the impacting surface in a current of air, the surfaces rotated so that it strikes the spores the volume of air swept can be calculated from the frontal area of the rod, the diameter through which it is turned and the number of revolutions for which it is run. For the leaf surface mycoflora, leaves were collected when the plants in seedling stage. Leaves of above plants were sampled at one month intervals. The collected leaves were placed in 250 ml of conical flask containing 75 ml of sterilized distilled water. The flask was hand shaken for 30 minutes to was used for the leaf surface mycoflora. One ml. of this suspension poured in to the petri plates containing Modified Martin’s Medium. 5 petri plates were used at a time in each experiment. Then the plates were incubated at 25⁰±1⁰ in the incubation chamber for 6-7 days.

Result and Discussion

17,315 fungal spores belonging to 43 fungal types were isolated from the rotorod sampler. Out of 43 fungal types, 18 fungal types were recorded during summer season. 28 fungal types were recorded during rainy season and maximum 33 fungal types were recorded during winter season. 33 fungal species belonging to 18 genera of fungi were isolated from the leaf surface mycoflora of Ocimum sanctum plant. Out of 33 fungal species 1 from Zygomycotina, 11 from Ascomycotina, 19 from Deuteromycotina and 2 from Mycelia sterilia were isolated. The Fungal population is not homogenous throughout the year and shows seasonal variation.

During the present investigation period it was also observed that maximum fungal population was observed in winter season, due to favorable temperature and relative humidity, moderable in rainy season and minimum number of fungal population was recorded in summer season, possibly due to unfavorable temperature and relative humidity for mycoflora. The periodicity and occurrence of various Fungi in relation to environmental conditions are in confirmation with similar studies conducted by Verma and Khare(1987).

Verma and Khare (1987) observed that maximum fungal population was observed in winter season. Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus, Cladosporium oxysporum, Alternaria alternata were most frequent fungi on the leaf surface mycoflora of Oscimum sanctum. Similarly Mucor species Aspergillus nidulence, Fusarium oxysporum, Nigrospora sphaerica were frequent fungi.

Sahu (1995), Jadhav (1996), Tiwari (1999) have also reported that maximum fungal types were recorded during winter season, moderate during rainy season and minimum number of fungal types in summer season on Spinach, Rice, Wheat and airspora of Raipur respectively.Further it was also observed that rust spores,Cladosporum,Nigrospora,Alternaria,Curvularia and Phaeotrichoconis spores where observed as most frequent fungal types.Similar observation were also obtained by Pandey and Tiwari (1991) and Jadhav and Tiwari (1994).

References

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