Abstract

Several external factors have great influence on growth and development of fungi but media plays the primary role. Fungal growth largely depends upon the quality of medium upon which it grows. The medium has a great role in anatomical, morphological and physiological characters of the fungi. Depending on the class, fungi and fungi like organisms belonging to different taxa need different types of media to grow and sporulate successfully. Six different types of media like PDA (Potato Dextrose Agar), TDA (Taro Dextrose Agar), EYDA (Elephant foot Yam Dextrose Agar), BEA (Banana Extract Agar), OMA (Oat Meal Agar) and RAM (Richards Agar Medium) have been used to study the morphological characters, growth behaviour and sporulation of three important post-harvest fungi, namely, Colletotrichum gloeosporoides, Lasiodiplodia theobromae and Curvularia lunata under in vitro condition. L. theobromae did not sporulate throughout the experimental period of 10 days but had the fastest mycellial growth rate on OMA, TDA and BEA. C. gloeosporoides showed maximum sporulation on OMA with relatively fast growth on PDA. C. lunata had almost maximum mycellial growth, sporulation and spore size on TDA. Maximum spore size of C. gloeosporoides and Curvularia sp. has been found in PDA and TDA but minimum size of spore found in TDA and EYDA, respectively.