Scytalidium lignicola causes black root rot and stem rot on cassava plants. The sporulation of S. lignicola was evaluated in 8 different culture media as following: potato-dextrose-agar (PDA), soybean-agar, oat-extract-agar, potato-sucrose-agar (PSA), coconutextract-agar, V-8 juice-agar, cassava-agar and corn meal-agar, under light alternation (12h light/12h dark) at three different temperatures 25, 28 and 30ºC. Discs measuring 5mm were removed from the border of a 5-days old fungus culture in PDA. These discs were transferred to the center of Petri dishes containing 15mL of each media with selective inhibitors. After 5 days of incubation, the spores were counted in a Neubauer chamber. The experiment was installed using a randomized block design in a factorial 8 media x 3 temperatures scheme. It was observed that the only significant factor was the media culture, V-8 juice-agar , PDA, cassava-agar, oat-extract-agar, PSA, and soybean-agar media gave the best fungus sporulation without significant difference among them. There was no significant difference between the corn meal-agar and coconutextract-agar media for fungus sporulation. On these media, fungus sporulation was the lowest compared to the other media.
black roor rot; stem rot cassava; fungus