Abstract
A procedure is described for granulating mycelial inoculum of C. kikuchii [Cercospora leaf blight and purple seed stain of soybean] by dropwise addition of homogenized mixtures of sodium alginate, kaolin clay, and mycelium into a 0.25 M CaCl2 solution. After 6 mo. under refrigeration, the granular preparations produced profuse viable, infective conidia when air-dried granules were rehydrated and exposed to irradiation from sunlamps (10 min/12 h) at 25.degree. C. An average of 3.8 .times. 106 conidia were produced per gram of air-dried granules of 4 isolates of C. kikuchii. This technique should prove useful for storage and production of large quantities of inoculum when needed for field evaluation of disease resistance and fungicide evaluation.