Tropical Plant Research

Hruda Ranjan Sahoo, Madhuchhanda Sahoo, Mayeetreyee Baboo and Nibha Gupta*

Abstract:
The incidence of fungi endowed with exploitable potential in acidic laterite soil was studied. The botanic garden located nearby to Chandaka forest of Odisha was considered the site for collection of soil sample. Among the 16 fungal isolate found in the soil4 belonged to Aspergillus sp., 1 belonged to Cladosporium sp., 6 belonged to Penicillium sp. while 5 were Sterile mycelium. All the sixteen fungi were characterized morphologically and screened for extracellular production of enzymes, organic acids and antagonistic behaviour. It is observed that most of the fungi are amylase, lipase, L-asparaginase producer while few of them werepositive for xylanase production. Antagonistic behaviour of sterile mycelium 7 exhibited its wide spectrum activity against fungi tested. It is evident that soil having acidic pH and contaminated with heavy metal is inhabited with useful fungi