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Ali et al

Bull. Iraq nat. Hist. Mus.
(2003) 10 (1): 7-11

DIAGNOSIS OF SOME PATHOGENIC FUNGI ON SELECTED LOCAL

WOODS

H. A. Ali Basim A. Abd Ali Goner A. Shaker
Natural Hist. Research Cent. & Museum

Baghdad University

ABSTRACT
To explore the durability of some local species of wood to fungal deterioration among the
storage period, this research has conducted on three species Eufcalyptus cammaldulensis,
Juglans regia, presence of some genus of fungi; Aspergillus, Penicillium,Botryoderma,
Chaetomium, Phoma, Cladosporium and Pacilomyces in different intensities.
The two fungi Aspergillus and Penicillium appeared more dominants than others, therefore
they were chosen for the pathogenicity test. The results showed that the two species of fungi
preferred Juglans wood firstly were the size of infection was more than 10 times of any of the
other two woods. Eucalyptus showed similar response to that of Morus, but with Aspergillus
it was few better.

INTRODUCTION
Wood is an important raw material, which considers as a primary source of different
products for multiple purposes and uses. It normally exposes to many factors that cause its
deterioration. Biological degradation is one of the most important factors that reveal to
decrease the using age of wood. Different types of organisms attack the wood inside buildings
as well as at exterior places. It’s well known that wood under direct climatic condition
changes should have more severe affects than that under covered areas. Physical factors;
temperature, humidity, direct sun light, winds…etc. act side by side with biological factors to
accelerate aging of wood outside doors, especially when it has not been treated against these
factors (Kollmann and Cote, 1968, Abd Ali et al., 1993).
Green wood should be seasoned either by air seasoning or by kilns before being
manufactured or used. During air seasoning or among the storage period, while the ambient
conditions are favorable, wood could be attacked by many species of fungi (F. P. L., 1974),
that depends on to what extent the conditions are suitable and on the species of wood.
In Iraq, however, where no kilns drying being used, air seasoning is the dominant.
Therefore, wood in the Seasoning areas and during the storage period should be attacked by
these organisms (Jagjit Singh, 2001). Hence, three species of local woods were chosen to
check out (1): the species of fungi by which wood been infected, and (2): the resistance of
these woods to the different species of fungi.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Specimens collection: Small bolts of three wood species; Eucaluptus camaldulensis,
Juglans regia, and Morus alba were selected from wood stores in Mosul. The speciemens had
passed a period of 12 to 18 months in the storage areas, i.e. they were being in the store
during the four-year seasons. The symptoms were observed on the infected samples such as
stain, rot and mold. Also, the natural color showed different degrees of deviation from their
normal colors. Heart wood and sap wood zones could be recognized that age of the samples

Diagnosis of some pathogenic fungi

was not less than 20 years, as the annual ring referred. Some of them showed marks or tunnels
as evidence to prior borer insect attack especially at the heartwood region, at the time of
studying they were free from insects.
Isolation: Diagnosis has done by checking the hypha, mycelium and spores and fructification
bodies in depending on the taxonomial keys.
Pathogenicity: Three equal pieces were cut from each wood species to test the pathogenicity.
The inoculation has prepared from the pure fungal culture of Aspergillus and Penicillium at a
range of one petri dish for each wood piece, though three replications for each species were
applied. Then inoculated and kept in a deep vessels and covered with polyethlene sacs and
irrigated every day with 10-15cm3of water per each vessel to keep the humidity in a proper
levels. Samples were left under the laboratory temperature (30-35) C° until getting results
after 50-60 days. Results resembled by the following symbols according to the degree of
infection, (Al-Ma’arof, 1984):

0-No infection.
1- Infection 25% from the size of piece.
2- Infection 50% from the size of piece.
3- Infection 75% from the size of piece.
4- Infection 100% from the size of piece.
The disease index (DI) was calculated by the equation stated by (Mickinney, 1923,
Komm and Stevenson, 1978 and Diwan, 1977 Al-Ma’arof, 1984):
DI = no. pieces in degree 0x0 + no. pieces in degree 1x1 + …no. pieces in degree 4x4 / no. all
pieces of all degrees.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The isolation and diagnosis according to (Barnett and Barry, 1972) showed that both of
variables affected the frequency of fungus presence in the wood (table 1). Although the wood
samples were being under the same storage conditions, quite a lot of difference could be
observed between them. While Penicillium was the dominant fungus on Morus, it could not
be isolated from Eucalyptus wood.
Other isolations of fungi (except Aspergillus on Juglans) showed either no infection or 16.6
percent depending on the species of the two variables.

Table 1: The percentage of fungus infection on three wood species.

Wood
species

Genus of fungi
Asper-
gillus

Penic-
illium

Botryo
-
derma

Phoma Chaet-
omium

Clados-
porium

Pacidilo
-myces

Juglans 66.6 16.6 - - - - 16.6
Eucalyp-
tus

- - 16.6 16.6 16.6 16.6 -

Morus 16.6 83.3 - - - 16.6 -

The analysis of variance of diseases indexes in pathogenicity test (table 2) approved that
fungus species as well as the species of wood were highly significant, so was the interaction
between these two factors.

Ali et al

Table 2: The effect of fungus and wood species on disease index
Source Df Mean square F cal

A (fungus sp.) 2 6.565 39.369**
B (wood sp.) 2 8.620 51.722**
A*B 4 3.037 18.222**
Error 18 0.167
Total 26

**: Significant at 0.01 leve
It is shown in table (3) that maximum disease index was obtained on Juglans wood by
Penicillium. The same fungus had less than one-tenth this value on Morus (0.30), few more
had Eucalyptus wood (Fig. 1). With Aspergillus the disease index followed the same different
response, were Eucalyptus had the best results. That means Juglans is less durable within the
three species followed by Morus and then Eucalyptus wood. This difference might be as a
result to the differences in the structure of the wood such as size and number of vessels and
pits, and to the percentage and type of wood extractives.

Table 3: The disease index in the pathogenicity test.

Rep. Woods
Juglans Eucalyptus Morus

P A C P A C P A C
R1 4.00 3.50 0.00 0.50 1.00 0.50 0.00 1.50 0.00
R2 4.00 2.50 0.00 1.00 1.00 0.00 0.50 1.50 0.00
R3 3.00 3.00 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00 0.50 0.50 0.00
Total 11.00 9.00 0.00 1.50 2.50 0.50 1.00 3.50 0.00
mean 3.70 3.00 0.00 0.50 0.80 0.17 0.30 1.17 0.00

P = Penicillium A = Aspergillus C = Control

D
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Diagnosis of some pathogenic fungi

LITERATURE CITED
Abd Ali, B. A., Kasir, W. A. and Al-Khaffaf, R. S. 1993 Forest Utilization. Mosul Univ.

Book House. 320 pp.

Al-Ma’arof, I. G. 1984 Deterioration of stone seed fruit trees caused by Phytophthora

drechsleri Tucker. M. Sc. Thesis submitted to Coll. of Agric., Baghdad Univ.
In Arabic.

Barnett, H. L. and Hunter, B. 1972 Illustrated genera of imperfect fungi. Third edition.

Diwan, M. M. 1977 Diagnosis and the effect of agricultural management on the resistant to

damping off and root rot of sugar beet. M. Sc. Thesis submitted to the Coll. of
Agric., Baghdad Univ. In Arabic.

Forest Prod. Lab. 1974 Wood Handbook. Wood as an engineering material. Forest Service-U.

S. Dept .of Agriculture, Handbook no. 72.

Jagjit Singh 2001 Environmental monitoring and control. Cathedral Communication Limited.

(E-mail contact).

Kollmann, F. and Cote, W. 1968 Principles of Wood Science and Technology. I- Solid

Wood. Springer Verlag, 592 pp.

Komm, D.A. and Stevenson, W. R. 1978 Tuber-borne infection of Solanum tuberosum

superior by Collecorichum coccodes. Plant Dis. Reprt., 62 (8): 687-689.

MicKinney 1923 Influence of soil temperature and moisture on the infection of wheat by

Helminthosporium sativum. J. Agric. Res., 26: 125-217.

Ali et al

Bull. Iraq nat. Hist. Mus.
(2003) 10 (1): 7-11

ة عين ة م م لي ب شا ى أ ة عل م ض م ت ال طر ا ض أ واع ا ف ع ص ب خي ش ت

علي عب عب س م عب س ال لي س سي كرگح ب ا و ا د ال ر ب ون
ي ف التار خ ال بيع ح ث ومت ح ز ب داد -مرك ة بغ د –جامع غدا ق – ب العرا

ة ص الخال
ــدف معرفـــة أنـــواع الفطريـــات الـــيت تصــيب األخشـــاب يف املخـــازن، أجريـــت الدارســـة علـــى

: ثالث أنواع من األخشاب احمللية هي
Eucalyptus cammaldulensis , Juglans regia ,

Morus alba
: ة ومت عزل أجناس الفطريات التالي

Aspergillus, Penicillium, Botryoderma, Chaetomium,
Phoma, Pacidiomycetes, Caladosprium.

مهـا اكثـر االنـواع تكـراراً Penicillium و Aspergillus وقـد ظهـر إن الفطـرين
أظهرت النتائج إن القدرة االمراضية للفطـرين . لذلك مت اختيارمها إلجراء اختبار القابلية االمراضية

املــــذكورين علــــى خشــــب اجلــــوز كانــــت أكثــــر مــــن عشــــرة أضــــعاف مــــا حصــــل لكــــل مــــن خشــــب
تلــك الــيت يبــديها و ظهــر إن خشــب اليوكــالبتوس يبــدي اســتجابة مقاربــة ل. اليوكــالبتوس أو التــوت

.كان أفضل بقليل Aspergillus خشب التوت إال انه مع الفطر