Effects of different medium on growth and sporulation of asexual stage of Epichloё endophytes

In the present study, six fungal strains of asexual stage of Epichloё endophytes were isolated from Poa tibetica (Ep-003, Ep-004), Melica przewalskyi (Em-014, Em-016) and Elymus tangutorum (Ee-001, Ee-003) and were cultured on different medium including potato dextrose agar (PDA), corn meal agar (CMA), wheat straw agar (WSA) and water agar (WA). The results showed that the same strain had different colonial morphologies on different medium which had the largest colonial diameter on PDA and CMA and the smallest colonial diameter on WSA and WA after four weeks growth on medium. For the performance of different strains on the same medium, the strain of Ep-003 was fastest growing with a culture diameter of 46.42 mm on PDA whereas the strain of Em-014 was slowest growing with a culture diameter of 7.07 mm on WA. There were significant difference between sporulation on different medium（P0.05）. Ep-003 only sporulated on WA and the other five isolates sporulated more on WSA and WA than on PDA and CMA. There was no significant differences between the spore length or width on different medium except with that Em-014 had the longest spore length of 3.77 m on WSA, and Ee003 had the longest spore length of 8.43 m on PDA. In terms of the length of conidiophore, there was no significant differences between the length of Ep-004, Em-016 and Ee-003 on four different medium. Em-014 had the longest length of 16.74 m on WA and the shortest length of 14.09 m on WSA. However, Ee-001 had the longest length of 18.59 m on CMA and the shortest length of 13.40 m on WSA.