Mahesh Hirehally Basavarajegowda

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore

Papaya black spot disease is an emerging concern in Karnataka, accompanied by a lack of knowledge regarding the associated pathogen. This study focuses on assessing the cultural and molecular variability of ten Asperisporium caricae isolates responsible for causing papaya black spot disease. The isolates underwent evaluation on twelve distinct soli...

Stalk rot disease is a major constraint in maize production and till date reported to be caused by two to three species of phytopathogenic fungi but, in our present study, we disclose the first report of stalk rot is caused by complex species of phytopathogens, which belongs to five different genera. Therefore, to substantiate these findings, a tot...

Red seaweed extracts have been shown to trigger the biotic stress tolerance in several crops. However, reports on transcriptional modifications in plants treated with seaweed biostimulant are limited. To understand the specific response of rice to blast disease in seaweed-biostimulant-primed and non-primed plants, transcriptomics of a susceptible r...

Effectors play an important role in host–pathogen interactions. Though an economically significant disease in rice, knowledge regarding the infection strategy of Rhizoctonia solani is obscure. In this study, we performed a genome-wide identification of the effectors in R. solani based on the characteristics of previously reported effector proteins....

In order to understand the use of micro farming specific local bio-control agents against the foliar pathogens, twenty-one Trichoderma isolates were collected from different cropping locations of Karnataka. In morphological characterization: all colonies were appeared dark green with flat, even/uneven growth with 2–4 concentric rings and sporulati...

Bacterial soft rot is one of the most devastating diseases and a major constraint encountered during carrot farming. Biological agents are the best eco-friendly alternatives to agrochemicals to manage soft rot disease to ensure environmental sustainability. In this study, about eight isolates of bacterial pathogen causing soft rot in carrots were c...

For the first time, updated molecular techniques were used to validate and elucidate the effect of the Panchagavya. Metagenomics was used to decipher the bacterial microbiome structure, which showed promising results for their existence and abundance in the Panchagavya.

Millets are a diverse group of small-seeded annual C4 Panicoid grasses cultivated as food and fodder crops mainly grown in poor and marginal subtropical and tropical regions globally. Generally, the millets are subjected to various abiotic stresses, like drought, heat, waterlogging, and lodging which affect the overall crop yield significantly. Pla...

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana subsp. coracana) is a cereal food crop for millions of resource-poor people of Africa and Indian subcontinent. It is climate-resilient nutri-cereal which survives under drought and marginal fertile soil. Owing to its ability to grow under diverse agroclimatic conditions, it is a model crop to study the genomic facto...

Red seaweed-derived biostimulants facilitate plant health and impart protection against abiotic stress conditions by their bioactive compounds and plant nutrients. The potency of red seaweed biostimulants (LBS6 and LBD1) on rice cv. IR-64 in response to fungicides induced stress was investigated in this study. Foliar application of LBS6 maintained...

Aim: This work aimed at determining the pathogenicity, molecular characterization, host range and rapid detection of Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. brasiliense (Pcb) causing soft rot disease in radish. Method and results: The four isolated isolates were inoculated to radish, typical soft rot symptoms were observed and Koch's postulates were p...

The Santalum is the most important genus under the Santalaceae family. The Indian sandalwood, Santalum album, is the only economically important tree species of this family traded for its fragrant essential oil. Santalum album is indigenous to the tropical regions of the Indian peninsula (Deccan Plateau), eastern Indonesia, and northern Australia....

Sandalwood is one of the most precious tree species owing to its unique fragrance and variety of medicinal properties. In this era of advanced technologies, multi-omic datasets are available for studying a particular species. The whole genome sequences from three different geographical locations like GKVK-1 from Bangalore, Salb-1 from Kerala, and H...

Sandalwood is an economically important tree species with global demand for its fragrant heartwood oil. Considering the global demand, understanding the population diversity, genetic architecture of important traits using molecular markers may play a vital role in improving sandalwood tree genetically for long term stability and short term producti...

Indian sandalwood (Santalum album L.) is an exquisite evergreen woody tropical tree which yields one of the world’s most expensive essential oil from its matured heartwood (~US$2600 l−1). The tree accumulates sesquiterpenes, second important group of active compounds in essential oil of plants. α- and β-santalols (C15H24O) in addition to α-and β-sa...

Sandalwood is a hemi-parasitic commercially and culturally important tree, mostly valued for the oil and fragrant heartwood. Sandalwood is a forest produce and the second most expensive wood in the world, whereas recent advancements of Next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies considerably promoted forest tree genomics. Genotyping interventions...

Soft rot disease of carrots is an important limiting factor of carrot production. In this study, carrot roots showing typical soft rot symptoms were identified in the fields, and diseased and healthy root samples were collected for pathogen identification. The pathogen was isolated using an enriched bell pepper method. The bell pepper developed a w...

Seaweed extracts contain many bio-elicitors that can greatly improve natural plant immunity, so stimulating plant immunity with these formulations is a sustainable approach. The red seaweed (Kappaphycus sp. and Eucheuma sp.)–derived biostimulants (LBS6 and LBD1) were tested for their ability to protect rice against fungal blast disease. Compared to...

By considering the major upcoming disease in rice growing areas, that is sheath blight in rice, caused by Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn and the huge chemicals used in rice production, including disease management, research was carried out at the College of Agriculture, V. C. Farm, Mandya, during Kharif 2020-21, in order to develop a new non-chemical stra...

Horsegram is a grain legume with excellent nutritional and remedial properties and good climate resilience, able to adapt to harsh environmental conditions. Here, we used a combination of short- and long-read sequencing technologies to generate a genome sequence of 279.12Mb, covering 83.53% of the estimated total size of the horsegram genome, and w...

Bacillus velezensis is widely known for its inherent biosynthetic potential to produce a wide range of bio-macromolecules and secondary metabolites, including polyketides (PKs) and siderophores, as well as ribosomally and non-ribosomally synthesized peptides. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the bio-macromolecules, such as proteins and...

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the staple food of the majority of Indians, and India is both the major producer and consumer of rice. Rice cultivation in India is confronted with diverse agro-climatic conditions, varying soil types, and several biotic and abiotic constraints. Among major fungal diseases of Rice in India, the blast caused by Magnaporthe...

Intensive cropping degrades soil quality and disrupts the soil microbiome. To understand the effect of rice monocropping on soil-microbiome, we used a comparative 16S rRNA metagenome sequencing method to analyze the diversity of soil microflora at the genomic level. Soil samples were obtained from five locations viz., Chamarajnagara, Davangere, Gan...

Rice blast (caused by Magnaporthe oryzae) and sheath rot diseases (caused by Sarocladium oryzae) are the most predominant seed-borne pathogens of rice. The detection of both pathogens in rice seed is essential to avoid production losses. In the present study, a microdevice platform was designed, which works on the principles of loop-mediated isothe...

The use of resistant (R) genes is the most effective strategy to manage bacterial leaf blight (BLB) disease of rice. Several attempts were made to incorporate R genes into susceptible rice cultivars using marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABB). However, MABB relies exclusively on PCR for foreground selection of R genes, which requires expensive...

Bacterial blight caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. punicae (Xap) is one of the economically important diseases of pomegranate in India. Under field conditions, the disease is being managed using antibiotics and copper-based compounds but with limited success due to their poor bio-efficacy. The reduced efficacy of antibiotics and copper compounds...

The use of resistant (R) genes is the most effective strategy to manage bacterial leaf blight (BLB) disease of rice. Several attempts were made to incorporate R genes into susceptible rice cultivars using marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABB). However, MABB relies exclusively on PCR for foreground selection of R genes, which requires expensive...

Transcriptional re-programming in host and pathogen upon leaf and neck infection is an evolving area of research for the rice blast community. Analysis of in planta rice transcriptome in leaf and neck tissues revealed tissue-specific and infection-specific expression of rice and Magnaporthe oryzae genes in host and pathogen. The glycosyl hydrolase,...

The work involves data mining from existing genome sequence assemblies of some Indian strains of Magnaporthe oryzae, that had been isolated from a range of hosts, coming from different geographical locations. Focus has been given on secondary metabolite biosynthesis pathways, to extract putative gene sequences encoding for key SMKGs, and characteri...

False smut disease of rice caused by Ustilaginoidea virens, is an emerging threat to rice cultivation worldwide due to its detrimental effects on grain yield and quality. False smut disease severity was 4.44‒17.22% during a roving survey in Kharif 2016 in the four different rice ecosystems of Karnataka, India. Further, 15 pathogen isolates represen...

Pomegranate is a premier export intended crop in India. Of late, bacterial blight disease in pomegranate is causing significant yield loss. The disease causing bacteria pv (Xap) Xanthomonas axonopodis punicae secretes type III effector proteins to suppress the pathogen associated molecular pattern (PAMP)-triggered plant immunity (PTI) and fosters t...

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Bacterial blight in pomegranate caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. punicae (Xap) is an increasing threat to pomegranate cultivation in India. To prevent economic losses, it is pivotal to detect the infection in latent stages rather than in symptomatic stages. We have developed an enhanced loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) technique fo...

Rice blast disease caused by Magnaporthe oryzae is a seed borne which occurs in all rice growing regions of the country (India) causing yield losses up to 40%. In the present study, we report the efficacy of different bacterial strains through seed priming in reducing the blast disease severity under in vitro, in vivo and field conditions. In vitro...

Endophytes confer unique ecological advantages to their host plants. In this study, we have characterized the diversity of endophytic consortia associated with the GPU-28 (GPU) and Udurumallige (UM) finger millet varieties, which are resistant and susceptible to the blast disease, respectively. Whole genome metagenome sequencing of GPU and UM helpe...

Bacterial blight in pomegranate caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. punicae (Xap) is an increasing threat for pomegranate cultivation in India. To prevent the economic losses, it is pivotal to detect the infection in latent stages rather than in later stages. We have developed an enhanced method termed as loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LA...

Santalum album (Indian sandalwood) is an important tropical evergreen tree, known for its fragrant heartwood-derived essential oil and its valuable carving wood. Here, we applied an integrated genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic approach to assemble and annotate the Indian sandalwood genome. Our genome sequencing resulted in the establishment of...

We are reporting the genome sequence of false smut pathogen U. virens strain UV-Gvt and this information is highly useful for further understanding the pathogen evolution and pathogenesis. This information can be better utilized for the development of rapid diagnostics and also in resistance breeding programme

Background Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) is an important staple food crop widely grown in Africa and South Asia. Among the millets, finger millet has high amount of calcium, methionine, tryptophan, fiber, and sulphur containing amino acids. In addition, it has C4 photosynthetic carbon assimilation mechanism, which helps to utilize...

Twenty two NILs and 94 pyramided lines were evaluated for shoot, root traits and water use efficiency (WUE) under two water regimes. Significant differences for different pyramid genotypes were observed under low moisture stress (LMS) condition. Higher yield was recorded in qRT 2+7-14-4 genotype containing root length QTL on chromosome 2 and 7, und...

Blast disease caused by the Magnaporthe species is a major factor affecting the productivity of rice, wheat and millets. This study was aimed at generating genomic information for rice and non-rice Magnaporthe isolates to understand the extent of genetic variation. We have sequenced the whole genome of the Magnaporthe isolates, infecting rice (leaf...

Sheath rot disease caused by Sarocladium oryzae is an emerging threat for rice cultivation at global level. However, limited information with respect to genomic resources and pathogenesis is a major setback to develop disease management strategies. Considering this fact, we sequenced the whole genome of highly virulent Sarocladium oryzae field isol...

Rice is a major staple food crop in the world. Over 80 % of rice cultivation area is under indica rice. Currently, genomic resources are lacking for indica as compared to japonica rice. In this study, we generated deep-sequencing data (Illumina and Pacific Biosciences sequencing) for one of the indica rice cultivars, HR-12 from India. We assembled...

Neem (Azadirachta indica A. Juss) is one of the most versatile tropical evergreen tree species known in India since the Vedic period (1500 BC–600 BC). Neem tree is a rich source of limonoids, having a wide spectrum of activity against insect pests and microbial pathogens. Complex tetranortriterpenoids such as azadirachtin, salanin and nimbin are th...

Assembly statistics during pre- and post-scaffolding.

Isolate specific genes in B157.

SNP analysis for annotated genes in MG01.

InDel analysis for MG01 annotated genes.

Genes expressed at the mycelial stage in MG01 based on strand specific RNAseq.

Supplementary Fig. S1. Genome assembly improvement using iterative approaches.Supplementary Fig. S2. A, Distribution of annotated genes and SNPs in the Indian isolates (B157 and MG01) with reference to 70-15 and B, ratio of synonymous to non-synonymous substitutions in B157 and MG01.Supplementary Fig. S3. Overall distribution of InDels across genom...

Iterative mapping and assembly for gap elimination analysis.

Isolate specific genes in MG01.

SNP analysis for annotated genes in B157.

Functional annotation of B157 genes.

M. oryzae specific genes absent in non-pathogenic Ascomycetes fungi.

Pathogenicity related genes in other plant-pathogenic Ascomycetes.

Primers used for PCR analysis.

Functional annotation of MG01 genes.

InDel analysis for B157 annotated genes.

The Indian subcontinent is the center of origin and diversity for rice (Oryza sativa L.). The O. sativa ssp. indica is a major food crop grown in India, which occupies the first and second position in area and production, respectively. Blast disease caused by Magnaporthe oryzae is a major constraint to rice production. Here, we report the analysis...

Indian subcontinent is the center of origin and diversity for Rice (Oryza sativa L.). The O. sativa ssp. indica is the major rice grown in Indian suncontinent. Rice blast disease caused by Magnaporthe oryzae is the major constraint in rice production in India. Genomes of several strains of M. oryzae have been reported ealier. However, genomic lands...

Indian subcontinent is the center of origin and diversity for Rice (Oryza sativa L.). The O. sativa ssp. indica is a major food crop grown in India, which occupies first and second position in area and production, respectively. Reference genome sequences of indica (cv. 93-11) and japonica (cv. Nipponbare) (Yu et al., Science 2002, 296: 79-92; Goff...