Fungal isolation
Papaya fruit showing typical anthracnose symptoms or lesions
of rot were examined under an optical microscope. Small pieces
of tissue were excised from the border of an actively growing
lesion and surface sterilized in 1.0% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl)
for 2–3 min, followed by washing in two changes of sterile distilled
water. The tissues were dried on a sterilized filter paper, plated
on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) (Difco Brand, USA) and incubated
at 25±2 ◦C for 8 days. Once mycelial growth was observed, the
colonies were re-isolated on fresh PDA plates to obtain pure cultures.
The isolates were identified based on their morphological and
cultural characters (Barnett and Hunter, 1972). Cultures identified
as C. gloeosporioides were maintained on PDA slants for further use.