Morphological and molecular characterisation for the identification of Trichoderma isolates from rhizospheric soils in Uttarakhand, India

Trichoderma species are well known for their capacity to stimulate plant growth and act as biocontrol agents. The objective of this study was to assess native Trichoderma isolates’ morphological, cultural, and molecular variability. In this research, 50 soil samples were taken from the rhizospheric zone of healthy sorghum plants across diverse agro-ecologies and locations of Uttarakhand and characterised them based on morphological and molecular features based on sequence analysis of Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) region-PCR amplification. Molecular analysis showed highest genetic similarity (minimum diversity) between isolates UKT-6 and UKT-8 (0.96) while minimum genetic similarity (highest diversity) was observed between UKT-9 and UKT-24 (0.10). Keeping the above factors in view, the present study was aimed at isolation, morpho-molecular characterisation of native Trichoderma isolates from rhizosphere of Sorghum in Uttarakhand. The morpho- molecular characterisation could be helpful for further classification and identification of different Trichoderma spp.