International Journal of Environmental & Agriculture Research (IJOEAR) ISSN:[2454-1850] [Vol-8, Issue-1, January- 2022] Page | 67 First report of Meloidogyne species infecting Turnera subulata J. E. Smith from Chhattisgarh, India Harvinder Kumar Singh 1* , Gaurav Sharma 2 , K. P. Verma 3 *1 Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyala Raipur, 492012, Chhattisgarh 2 Department of Floriculture and Landscaping, Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University, Jhansi, Uttar-Pradesh 3 College of Agriculture and Research Station Bemetra, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyala Raipur, 492012, Chhattisgarh *Corresponding Author Abstract— Gall symptoms were observed on the roots of Turnera subulata a flowering shrub of medicinal importance. Rhizosphere soil and infected root samples of T. subulata were collected from Jora, Krishaknagar, IGKV campus Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Second-stage juveniles (J2) of root knot nematode were isolated from diseased roots showing excessive gall formations on primary as well as secondary roots. Morphological and morphometrical findings after examination of the species conformed with descriptions of Genus Meloidogyne. This is the first report of Meloidogyne species infecting T. subulata in India as per the available literature scan. Keywords— Turnera subulata, Gall symptoms, Root Knot nematode. I. INTRODUCTION Turnera subulata belonging to the Turneraceae family is one of the most extensively distributed perennial flowering weed in the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia and Africa. T. subulata is infact a polymorphic polyploid complex of perennial weeds commonly called „Butter cup, sulphur alder and white alder‟. Plants are compact, thick herb with dark green foliage and light yellow or white flower having a dark base (Saravanan et al., 5). It is most widely adopted as an ornamental garden plant and important medicinal herb used in alternative traditional folk medicine for treatment of several types of chronic diseases. It has been reported as a fast naturalizing weed in Indian subcontinent (Kumar et al.,3) Nematodes account for an estimated 14% of all worldwide plant losses and among them root-knot nematodes are the most common and destructive nematode pathogens. Most root-knot nematodes have a very wide host range (Mitkowski & Abawi,4). In India, the distribution of nematodes in different states has been documented in nematode distribution atlas by All India Coordinated Research Project (Nematodes) and published by Directorate of Information and Publications of Agriculture, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India during 2010. Stunting and leaf wilting symptoms were observed in few plants of Turnera subulata, (Figure 1a & b) grown as hedges in the Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya Campus, Raipur. The plants when uprooted revealed the presence of galls on primary as well as on secondary roots (Figure 1c & d). Rhizospheric soil and infected root samples of T. subulata were collected from University campus. Around 20 percent of total plants were found to be associated with multiple galling on roots Received:- 15 January 2022/ Revised:- 21 January 2022/ Accepted:- 26 January 2022/ Published: 31-01-2022 Copyright @ 2021 International Journal of Environmental and Agriculture Research This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted Non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.