Potato carrot agar with manganese as an isolation medium for Alternaria, Epicoccum and Phoma

A semi-selective medium for isolation of Alternaria spp., Epicoccum sp. and Phoma spp. from soil and plant samples was developed. The basal medium was a modified potato carrot agar (PCA), containing 10 g/L of potato and carrot. It is known that the target genera sporulate well on standard PCA when grown at 25 °C with an alternating light/dark cycle consisting of 8 h of cool-white daylight followed by 16 h darkness. Addition of 1.5% MnCl2 4 H2O (w/v) inhibited most other fungi than Alternaria, Epicoccum and Phoma species when tested on pure cultures. The mycobiota of two soil samples and eight grain samples were examined using PCA-Mn and three commonly used isolation media, DRYES, DG18 and V8. On the three conventional media growth of several genera was observed with the predominant being Aspergillus, Eurotium, Fusarium, Mucor, Penicillium and Rhizopus. Of these only F. oxysporum and F. verticillioides were able to grow on PCA-Mn. Alternaria infectoria and Epicoccum nigrum were present in three cereal grain samples, but emerged to a far lower degree on the three conventional media compared to PCA-Mn. Three black spored fungi, identified as Phoma eupyrena, Paraconiothyrium minitan and one unknown species, were isolated from the two soil samples when incubated on PCA-Mn but were absent on the three conventional media.