Exotic rust fungus to manage the invasive mile-a-minute weed in India: Pre-release evaluation and status of establishment in the field

Puccinia spegazzinii (Pucciniales: Pucciniaceae) from Peru for biological control of Mikania micrantha (Asteraceae: Eupatorieae) in India: evaluating susceptibility of host populations and confirming host specificity

“…In pre-release evaluation, the rust was further assessed under strict quarantine conditions to ascertain the susceptibility of M. micrantha populations from three affected regions of India and to confirm the safety of economically important plant species. Results of hostspecificity screening of 90 plant species from 32 families confirmed that the Trinidadian pathotype of P. spegazzinii was highly host-specific and could not infect any of the test plant species, while it was highly pathogenic to most of the target weed populations from Assam, Kerala and the Andaman and Nicobar islands (Sreerama Kumar et al 2016).…”

“…Populations of M. micrantha in the form of young seedlings or cuttings were collected from three different regions in India (Table 1) (Sreerama Kumar et al 2016). These comprised three populations (Chimmoni, Peechi and Vazhachal) from Thrissur district of Kerala, 15 populations collected from as many locations in 13 districts of Assam, and 12 populations collected from ten locations representing North and Middle Andaman and South Andaman districts in Andaman and Nicobar islands.…”

“…The list (Table 2) included 25 common and economically important plant species representing ten of the 17 tribes known in the family (Katinas 2005). Additionally, sunflower, Helianthus annuus L. (Asteraceae: Heliantheae), which was expected to react to P. The first numeral within the square brackets indicates the number of plants in which more than 50% of the leaf/petiole was covered with pustules, and the second indicates the number of plants in which fusion of pustules was observed c Data given for the first 100 plants tested spegazzinii (Ellison et al 2008;Sreerama Kumar et al 2016), was investigated more rigorously. Details of the 31 cultivars/accessions of sunflower tested for host specificity of the rust are given in Table 3.…”

“…Under a collaborative project between India and CABI in the UK during 1996-2000, the autoecious, microcyclic rust fungus, Puccinia spegazzinii de Toni (Pucciniales: Pucciniaceae), a common and damaging pathogen of M. micrantha in the Neotropics, was chosen as the most ideal candidate for introduction into India to manage the weed (Murphy et al 2000;Sreerama Kumar et al 2016).…”

“…In Kerala, the rust was initially released in agricultural systems, during August 2006, followed by releases at forest sites. Although on initial assessment those releases were considered to be successful because the rust had spread and persisted for a short while, there was no apparent establishment (Sankaran et al 2008;Sreerama Kumar et al 2016).…”