Black Hard Rot Disease of Cola nitida and its Fungal Associates

Background and Objective: Kola nuts botanically calledCola nitida (Vent.) are economic cash crops in Nigeria and have important cultural symbolism in many ethnic groups. A study was conducted to identify the fungal pathogens responsible for kola nuts rot. Materials and Methods: Spoilt kola nuts were collected from Ogbunabali Fruit Garden Market in D-Line, Port Harcourt Local Government Area of Rivers State and morphologically identified. The DNA of the most common fungal isolates, KN-01 was molecularly characterized using Internal Transcribed Spacer 4 and 5 molecular markers. The isolate’s DNA sequence was aligned using the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool for Nucleotide (BLASTN) 2.8.0 version of the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Database. The molecular weight of the DNA of the isolate was 577 Base Pairs. Results: The molecular weight of the DNA of the isolates was 577 base pairs for Aspergillus niger. Based on sequence similarity, it was observed that the C. nitida isolate KN-01 was 99.64% identical to Aspergillus niger isolate with accession number MN474007.1. Conclusion: According to the results, Aspergillus species are among the fungi responsible for the rots in kola nuts. It is well known that Aspergillus niger can infiltrate the lungs and impair immunity. It is hoped that these findings will enhance the knowledge currently available, contributes to the development of efficient disease control strategies for reducing the post-harvest losses brought on by Aspergillus niger and serve as a foundation for further research into the potential mycotoxin effects of ingesting diseased C. nitida.