Pengembangan penanda molekuler untuk deteksi Phytophthora palmivora pada tanaman kakao

Abstract

Pod rot is one of the most important diseases in cacao. This disease could be incited by Phytophthota palmivora, P. megakarya, P, capsici or P. citrophthora The causal agent of pod rot disease in cacao in Indonesia is known to be P. palmivora The success of pod rot disease management partly depends on the success d efforts in reducing the quantify and quality of the disease inoculum ubove and below soil surface. Provision of malecular-based detection system would improve the accuracy of determination of these two parameters. The objective of this experiment was to develop a pair of primers that could be used to specifically amplify rDNA fragments of'P. palmivora associated with pod rot disease in cacao. Design of these primers was made based on the DNA sequence of rDNA fragment amplified using a pair of universal primers TTS4/ITS5. Regions showing high degree of dissimilarity among species of Phytophlhora and high degree cf similarity within the same species of P. palmivora were determined through DNA alignment. Specific forward primer (DTF) S'-CTT AGT TGG GGG TCT CTT TC-3- and reverse primer (Ilyas I R) 5-GTT C AC CM TCA TAC CAC C-3' were obtained. Thrs pair of primers had been proven to specifically amplify only rDNA fragment, approximately 650 bp, of P. palmivora associated with pod rat disease and stem canker in cacao