Growth Interactions and Somatic Compatibility of Daldinia concentrica (Bolton) Ces. & De Not. Isolates from Edo State, Nigeria

This study investigated the compatibility of selected isolates of the medicinal mushroom, Daldinia concentrica of southern Nigeria origin. The pure cultures of the mushroom were prepared on Potato Dextrose Agar. Compatibility was done by pairing the isolates in the Petri dishes. Five millimetre agar block of each of isolate was inoculated in a Potato Dextrose Agar plate in dual cultures with a distance of 2 cm apart. Five replicate plates were prepared for each paired isolates. The controls were the pairs from the same plate of isolate. Daily determination of mycelia extension in millimetre was done until the mycelia of the two inocula merged or repelled each other. It was observed that 60% of the paired isolates were incompatible while the remaining 40% were compatible. There were demarcation zones in between incompatible isolates pairs while total fusion occurred in all the compatible isolate pairs of the mushroom. The differences in the mycelial extension of the paired isolates was found to be significant (p=0.05). The highest mycelial extension (14.83±0.40mm) was found in one isolate with a corresponding value of 4.67±0.33mm for another isolate. The level of incompatibility in the study suggests that there may be more genotypes of the mushroom in the field. This study therefore underscores the need for more investigations on the intra-specific eco-diversity of the mushroom.