Morphological Characterization of Fungal Endophytes Isolated from the Leaves and Roots of Banana Plants (Musa sp.)

In recent years, fungal endophytes are being studied extensively for their crucial role in plants growth promotion as well as their role in antagonistic activity against many plant pathogens. In the present investigation, focus was made to study fungal endophytes, to isolate and morphologically characterized and identify from the leave and roots of wild and locally cultivated bananas from the Chumoukedima district, state Nagaland, India. Altogether 58 fungal endophytes were isolated and out of these, 43 isolates were from the leave samples and 15 isolates from the root samples. Out of these, 50 isolates were from the wild banana plants (38 isolates from the leaf samples and 12 from the root samples) and 8 isolates from the cultivated banana plants (5 from the leaf samples and 3 from the root samples). Based on the morphological studies, seven isolates were identified as Penicillium sp., five isolates as Trichoderma sp., five isolates as Diaporthe sp., four isolates as Fusarium sp., three isolates as Aspergillus sp., three as Colletotrichum sp. and one each of Apiospora sp. and Botrytis sp. A total of 20 isolates were identified as Mycelia sterilia. A total of eight genera were identified that belonged to the Phylum Ascomycota.