Research Article Open Access Monajjem et al., J Plant Pathol Microb 2014, 5:4 DOI: 10.4172/2157-7471.1000239 Volume 5 • Isue 4 • 1000239 J Plant Pathol Microb ISSN: 2157-7471 JPPM, an open access journal Keywords: Seed-borne fungi; Rice; Seed quality; Climatic conditions Introduction Seed is the primary basis of crop production and is the most important available input factor for smallholder farmers [1]. In most parts of the world, smallholder farmers use their produced seed for next year planting, consequently, they attempt to stock their own produced seed for several months to several years. Tese seeds are ofen of poor quality, impure and contaminated with pathogens [2]. Seed contamination of pathogens during storage could reduce seed vigor, germination, and cause negative efect on appearance and chemical composition of seeds in addition to accelerate seed deterioration, it can also inhibit germination, transmission of the pathogen from seed to seedling or main plant leading to reduction in crop yield and threatened food security [3]. Food security of the world depends on sufcient production of small seed cereals as the cheapest source that provided about 70 of absorbable energy [4]. Based on seed production, rice is the second small seed cereals, with area under cultivation about 154 million hectares, with a global production of 720 million tons of paddy [5]. Rice is very important in Iran and it provides substantial part of the diet, especially in the three Northern provinces; Guilan, Mazandaranand and Golestan. Total rice cultivation area in the country is approximately 600 thousand hectares. Guilan province with 230 thousand hectares of rice felds with an average of 0.8 hectares of land owned by each farmer has the second place in rice production. In this province, from total rice seeds which are used by farmers only about 5 percent are considered as certifed seed and the other 95 percent is produced by farmers and keep maintained in On-farm storages until sowing [6]. Diferent research studies have stated that in poor storage conditions, pathogens are the most important factors which not only cause the seed aging and deterioration during storage, but also seed and seedling rotting or abnormal production of seedlings in nursery [7,8]. Several reports indicated that the majority of these pathogens that lead to the production of abnormal seedlings are seed-borne fungi [9]. Te rate of damage of these fungi depends on their genus and species, rate of density, fungi invaded, environmental conditions, cultivar susceptibility and interaction of these factors on cultural practice [10]. More than 100 species of fungi have been identifed on rice seeds so far. However, their severity depends on the time of sampling, location and varieties are diferent [11-13]. Trough an assessment of rice seed contamination to diferent seed-born fungi, 8 genera including 12 species of fungi were identifed which among them Bipolaris oryzae with 59% and Alternaria padwickii with 53% had the highest severity [13]. Ahmed et al. [9] in their study on rice seed contamination identifed 9 species of seed-born fungi including; Fusarium oxysporum, F. moniliforme, Bipolaris oryzae, Alternaria padwickii, Curvularia lunata, Aspergillus favus, A. niger, Penicillium sp. and Nigrospora oryzae. Tey *Corresponding author: Salar Monajjem, Phd student in seed technology Agronomy Group, Gorgan University of Agriculture Science & Nature Resource, Iran, Tel: +989364146800; E-mail: gromonajem@gmail.com Received: July 21, 2014; Accepted November 11, 2014; Published November 13, 2014 Citation: Monajjem S, Zainali E, Ghaderi-Far F, Soltani E, Chaleshtari MH, et al. (2014) Evaluation Seed-born Fungi of Rice [Oryza sativa L.] and that Effect on Seed Quality. J Plant Pathol Microb 5: 239. doi:10.4172/2157-7471.1000239 Copyright: © 2014 Monajjem S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Poor seedling establishment in rice is one of the problems in Guilan province as the second most important rice-growing locations in Iran. The aim of this study was to evaluate the contamination occurrence of rice seed in fve locations of Guilan province to seed-borne fungi and their effects on germination characteristics. Five seed sample of Hashemi variety obtained from leading farmers from each location, and their germination characteristics and the rate of contamination to Fusarium moniliforme, Bipolaris oryzae, Aspergillus niger, A. favus, Penicillium sp., Alternaria padwickii was evaluated using the PDA and standard blotter methods. The assessment results showed that among the seed-borne fungi, two species A. niger and A. favus exhibited the highest severity in both methods. Samples from Rasht and Zeybaknar locations showed the most contamination to A. favus and A. niger. A positive and signifcant linear relationship was observed between daily precipitation and relative humidity with severity of A. favus and A. niger fungus. A. niger, A. padwickii, daily precipitation and average minimum temperature had the most infuence on germination characteristics. Among the studied factors, A. niger had high negative impact compared to other factors on all rice seed germination characteristics. Among the study locations, quality of seeds in Rostam- Abad in terms of germination percentage, germination rate, germination uniformity and electrical conductivity had the best state. The results of this study showed that the low precipitation and low daily average humidity along with higher number of sunshine hours in the Rostam-Abad caused reduction in activity and abundance of fungi, led to improve the quality of produced seed. Evaluation Seed-born Fungi of Rice [Oryza sativa L.] and that Effect on Seed Quality Salar Monajjem 1 *, Ebrahim Zainali 2 , Farshid Ghaderi-Far 2 , Elias Soltani 3 , Maryam Hosseini Chaleshtari 4 and Maryam Khoshkdaman 5 1 Ph.D Student of Seed Science and Technology 2 Assistant Prof., Dept. of Agronomy, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources 3 Assistant Prof., Dept. of Agronomy, University of Tehran 4 Assistant Prof., Rice Research Institute of Iran 5 Scholar of Rice Research Institute of Iran Journal of Plant Pathology & Microbiology J o u r n a l o f P l a n t P a t h ol o g y & M i c r o b i o l o g y ISSN: 2157-7471