Morphological identification of fungal pathogen associated with black pepper anthracnose / Muhamad Firdaus Mustapah and Nuraini Mohd Noor

Black pepper is one of the most important spices in the world. As other crops, black pepper also severely been infected by diseases that could reduce the quality and quantity of the yield. The common disease infected black pepper is anthracnose, root rot blight. Anthracnose normally all parts of black pepper but severe infections are on fruits and leaves. The main symptoms of anthracnose are formation of angular to irregular or circular brownish lesions with necrosis at the leaf tips. This study focused on identification of fungal pathogen associated with anthracnose of black pepper using morphological characterization. The samples were collected from Malaysian Pepper Board field located in Kluang, Johor. Based on macroscopic and microscopic characteristics, two types of fungi were identified as anthracnose pathogen namely, Colletotrichum spp and Fusarium oxysporum. Colletotrichum isolates produces dark grey colony on PDA media. The conidia are spherical in shape. Meanwhile Fusarium isolated produced orange to purple colony on media. The macroconidia are spindle shaped while the microconidia are oval to kidney shaped.