Exploring the Plant Nematode Interaction of Meloidogyne Incognita under Okra Ecosystem

Abstract

Southern root knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita is an important nematode genus infesting okra growing tracts of Tamil Nadu. The present study was carried out to understand the cytological changes that occur during Meloidogyne incognita interaction with okra roots by employing Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The results exhibited the explicit changes in cellular structures of healthy and nematode-infested roots. The healthy roots possessed normal cell size for metaxylem, protoxylem, pith and cortex region nevertheless nematode infested roots revealed coalesced cellular structures. Root cell wall thickening, cell wall ingrowth, and starch granule accumulates of varying diameter were also observed in M. incognita infested okra roots, which were found to be the factors responsible for producing above ground symptoms during host-nematode interaction. Longitudinal imaging of nematode infested roots showed the nematode entry points of varying diameter along with adhered juveniles Juveniles on root topography and this was in contrast in M. incognita infested okra roots. Comparatively, these structures were absent in healthy roots.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.200806

Pages

109 - 113

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords