A REVIEW ON SEED BORNE MYCOFLORA ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT CEREAL CROP SEEDS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT

India is one of the major cereal crops grower and importer of the cereal crop. The diverse agro ecological conditions in the country are favourable for growing annual cereal crops. Seed samples of various cereal crops (Maize, Rice and Wheat) were collected from major cereal crops growing area of West Bengal, India and were analyzed by adopting standard blotter, agar plate, rolled towel and deep freeze methods for detecting mycoflora, which are associated with cereal crops. Out of those two methods that are adopted for detection of seed mycoflora, agar plate method was found to be superior to all others method in detection of seed mycoflora. In case of wheat Maximum 15 numbers of mycoflora viz., Bipolaris sorokiniana, Alternaria alternata, A. triticina, Curvularia lunata, Curvularia pallescens, Fusarium oxysporum, Macrophomina phaseolina, Trichoderma hamatum, Cladosporium cladosporioides, Epicoccum purpurascens, Nigrospora oryzae, Aspergillus flavus, A. niger, Penicillium sp. and Rhizopus sp. were in association with Standard Blotter Paper method. Many fungal species such as Tilletia indica, T. foetida, T. caries, Leptosphaeri nodorum, Alternaria tritici, Fusarium semitectum, Ustilago segetum var. tritici, Alternaria padwickii, Drechslera oryzae, Fusarium moniliforme, Pyricularia oryzae, T. barclayana, Rhizoctonia solani, Sarocladium oryzae, Ustilaginoidea virens, Fusarium moniliforme, Lasiodiplodia theobromae, Peronosclerospora maydis and bacterial species were also found associated with seeds of cereal seed cultivars. Four chemical fungicides namely antra cal, topspin, mancozeb and dorsal were used to investigate their effects on seed-borne mycoflora of rice. Seed treatment with different fungicides exhibited an insignificant effect on the occurrence of F. moniliforme and Alternaria sp. From this particular study, it can be said that antracal of Helminthosporium sp. and Curvularia sp will completely stop growing. The other three fungicides markedly suppressed the growth of Helminthosporium sp. by 50%. Similarly, topsin and mancozeb suppressed the growth of Curvularia sp. by 50%.