Fungus isolated from wounded hopea odorata roxb in Gong Badak District, Terengganu

Abstract

Urban planted trees always subjected to mechanical damage and disturbance resulted in wounding of sapwood tissues. Wounded living trees are exposed to invasion by various microorganisms including decay fungus. The importance of this study is for monitoring tree health as part of plant conservation efforts. The _study was conducted to examine the occurrence of fungus on stem wound of urban planted Hopea odorata around Gong Badak District, Kuala Terengganu. Wound associated fungi were isolated and identified to lowest possible taxa. From 160 trees surveyed, 18 trees showed the presence of stem wound which due to several causes. A total of 4 trees had a fresh wound while 14 trees had an old wound. There were 37 isolates obtained from wounded tissues, 30 isolates from old wound and 7 isolates from fresh wound. Overall, nine morphotypes of fungus were isolated with five morphotypes were unidentified (Fl, F2, F3, F4 and F5). Identified morphotypes of fungus consists of Fusarium, Trichoderma, Nigrospora and Aspergillus. The most frequently isolated fungus was Fl and the least frequent were Aspergillus, F4 and F5. Fungus occurrence was not related to wound age, size or wound severity.