Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(8): 4207-4214 4207 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2018.708.440 Screening of Suitable Culture Media for Growth, Cultural and Morphological Characters of Pycnidia Forming Fungi K. Sarda Devi 1* , Dilip Kumar Misra 2 , Jayanta Saha 2 , Ph. Sobita Devi 1 and Bireswar Sinha 1 1 Department of plant pathology, College of Agriculture, CAU, Iroisemba, Imphal, Manipur, India 2 Department of plant pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, BCKVV, Mohanpur, Nadia, W.B., India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction There are two million kinds of living organisms on the earth, of which fungi constitute approximately a hundred thousand species, and many more await discovery. No matter which aspect of fungi we look at, they are highly diverse and versatile organisms adapted to all kinds of environments and require several specific elements for growth and reproduction. Fungi are isolated on specific culture medium for cultivation, preservation, microscopic examination and biochemical and physiological characterization. A wide range of media are used for isolation of different groups of fungi that influences the vegetative growth and colony morphology, pigmentation and sporulation depending upon the composition of specific culture medium, pH, temperature, light, water availability and surrounding atmospheric gas mixture (Northolt and Bullerman, 1982; Kuhn and Ghannoum, 2003; Kumara and Rawal, 2008). However, the requirements for fungal growth are generally less stringent than for the sporulation. Nowadays, fungal taxonomy is in a state of rapid flux, because of the recent researches International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 08 (2018) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Different agar media, including natural, Oat Meal Agar (OMA), Malt Extract Agar (MEA), V 8 Agar and Leaf extract agar of host plant, semi-synthetic media, Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA), carrot dextrose agar (CaDA) and synthetic media, Czapex Dox Agar (CDA), Richards Synthetic Agar (RSA), Asthana and Hawkers Agar (AHA)) were used to observed the mycelial growth rate, cultural and morphological characters of four fungal isolates after seven days of incubation at 26±1°C. The colony character including diameter, culture characteristics (texture, surface and reverse colouration, zonation) and sporulation of selected test fungi were greatly influenced by the type of growth medium used. On comparative study of higher mycelial growth of the four test fungi, the best performance where observed in PDA as well as moderate to heavy sporulation on this culture medium. These results will find use in fungal taxonomic studies. Keywords Pycnidia forming Fungi, Culture media, Synthetic media, semi-synthetic, Colony character Accepted: 22 July 2018 Available Online: 10 August 2018 Article Info