ABSTRACT
Large cardamom (Amomum subulatum Roxb.) is now affected by several diseases caused by both viruses andfungi. At present, leaf blight is considered a major threat to cardamom cultivation in Sikkim. During the pasttwo decades, cultivation of the crop in this region has dropped by almost 60%. Hence, to quantify the severityof leaf blight damage and identification of the causal organism for the disease, a survey was conducted fromMay to August 2017 in different large cardamom growing regions of Sikkim. During this survey, a typicalsymptom of leaf blight was observed on cardamom leaves in many locations. The leaves with blights werecollected, surface sterilized, and inoculated on potato dextrose agar (PDA). The pathogen was isolated as pureculture, and on the basis of morphological and microscopic characteristics, the fungus was identified species ofCurvularia. Molecular characterization of the fungal isolate with ITS-rDNA partial gene amplification usinguniversal primers (ITS4 and ITS5), showed 100% similarity with Curvularia eragrostidis (family: Pleosporaceae). The fungal isolate and nucleotide sequence was deposited in National Fungal Culture Collection ofIndia (NFCCI), Pune and NCBI with accession numbers NFCCI 4541 and MN710527, respectively. This is thefirst report on the occurrence of C. eragrostidis pathogen causing leaf blight of large cardamom grown inSikkim.