Controlling Diseases in Porang Plants (Amorphophallus muelleri Blume) Using Endophytic Fungi In vitro

Porang is a bulbous plant which has great development prospect in Indonesia. Porang bulbs has huge potential product, however it hasn’t managed well and optimal. Nowadays Porang bulbs are widely used as raw material for making mannan flour which has high economic value and widely used in the food sector. The Sampling is taking location at trial garden of Teluk Dalam Agriculture Faculty of Mulawarman University, in Karang Tunggal Village, Tenggarong Seberang District, Kutai Kartanegara Regency, East Kalimantan Province.

This research aims to identify key diseases affecting the Porang plants, investigate their causes, and evaluate the potential of endophytic fungi as biological control agents. Laboratory activities involve isolating and identifying endophytic fungi from healthy Porang plants and pathogenic fungi from diseased ones. The study employs a Completely Randomized Design for testing antagonistic properties.

The result shows that the endophytic fungi which was isolated on porang plants from research location in trial garden of Teluk Dalam Agriculture Faculty of Mulawarman University, in Karang Tunggal Village, Tenggarong Seberang District, Kutai Kartanegara Regency, East Kalimantan Province. There are three types of endophytic fungi, namely: Gliocladium sp., Trichoderma, and Aspergillus flavus, whereas pathogen fungi which has been found attack Porang plants is Fusarium sp. and Colletotrichum sp. Those three endophytic fungi against two pathogenic fungi have a resistance level of Fusarium sp x endophytic fungi with an average of 42.58% and the magnitude of resistance is Colletotrichum sp x endophytic fungi with average of 40.05%.