Detection of seed-borne fungal pathogens associated with wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) seeds collected from farmer fields and grain market

The plant pathogens significantly affect quality and marketability of several cereal crops. Of these, seed-borne phytopathogens are responsible for quality and quantity losses in crops on commercial scale. The aim of this study was to isolate and detect the seed-borne mycoflora from seed lots of various bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes widely grown in Bahawalpur division of south Punjab, Pakistan. Eleven commercial wheat cultivars/genotypes were investigated through standard blotter paper method. The samples were randomly collected from farmer fields and grain markets. The collected samples were brought to the laboratory and analyzed with different methods to detect the mycoflora. Twenty-one fungal species were recovered from seeds lots of diversified gene pool. The most frequently isolated fungi were Alternaria alternata, Fusarium monoliformae, Aspergillus flavus, Helminthosporium spp., Curvularia spp., Bipolaris sorokiniana, Phoma spp. and Penicillium spp. The one devasting fungal specie Alternaria alternata (88.8%) was the dominating species in all wheat genotypes included in the study. These results divulge the presence of fungal pathogens in all wheat cultivars and could exert adverse effect on their allometric traits. So, there is a potential need to control these seed borne pathogens to minimize the crop yield losses.