Antiviral activity of Ganoderma sp. on groundnut bud necrosis virus (gbnv) infection on cowpea Sajeena A., Mohanbabu R., Marimuthu T. Centre for Plant Protection Studies Department of Plant Pathology, Agricultural College and Research InstituteCoimbatore-641 003, Tamil Nadu, India Online published on 19 March, 2018. Abstract Eighteen basidiomycetes collected from Yercaud, Salem district and at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu were screened against plant pathogens for their antifungal effect. Among the mushrooms, the maximum growth inhibition was exhibited by Ganoderrna sp. followed by Schizophyllurn sp. Six solvents (ethyl acetate, diethyl ether, hexane, chloroform, acetone and petroleum ether) were tested for their efficacy in extracting the antifungal metabolites and diethyl ether was found to be the efficient solvent in extracting the antifungal metabolites from the culture filtrate of Ganoderrna sp. The diethyl ether extract of Ganoderrna sp. was used to develop a formulation (emulsifiable concentrate). The formulation (Ganosol) which showed antifungal activity was also tested for its antiviral activity against groundnut bud necrosis virus infection in cowpea plants. Spraying of cowpea plants with the formulation reduced the number of lesions to a significant level when compared to the inoculated control. Simultaneous spray of the formulation and the virus inoculation was found to be the best treatment, which produced 88.39% reduction of the number of lesions followed by pre-inoculation spray (63.67%) compared to the control under glass house conditions. Top Keywords Cowpea, Diethyl ether extract, Ganoderrna formulation (Ganosol), Ganoderrna sp, Groundnut bud necrosis virus. Top |