Presidential address-My Voyage with fungi-by Prof. C. Manoharachary, Mycology Lab, Department of Botany, Osmania University, Hyderabad

36th Ann. Meeting of MSI & Nat. Seminar on Fungal Biodiversity & Bioprospecting….. Goa, India Oct., 29-30, 2009

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

MY VOYAGE WITH FUNGI

C. Manoharachary
Mycology Lab, Department of Botany, Osmania University, Hyderabad 500 007.
E-mail:cmchary@rediffmail.com

Fungi are the beautiful living organisms on earth and serves the humanity with all sincerity and concern through their biotechnological products.
I have started my voyage with fungi when I joined post graduation in Botany (1965) at Osmania University with Mycology and Plant pathology as specialization. This was followed by my keen interest to do Ph.D. Due to my family circumstances and financial concerns I have to leave research and join teaching in a district college, Vikarabad. The scrub jungle forest and scenic beauty of hill region with its vegetation made me to venture again for survey of fungi. During my stay at that place for two years, I have collected litter samples, soils and other substrates, examined them and isolated vast array of fungi. This survey has fetched me with some new and interesting fungi such as Annellophors ziziphi, Stemphylioma terricola, Limacina ramaraoi, Pycnotheca ixorae, Prathigada bauhiniae, Graphium terricola and several other interesting fungi.
These results have given me impetus to explore diversified habitats of this neglected geographical region. In the mean while I joined Osmania University as Lecturer in 1970 and this has given me an opportunity to concentrate on my Ph.D. work. Some work on mycofloristics of Andhra Pradesh was done by Dr. Salam, Dr. Vaheeduddin, Dr. P.N. Rao, Dr. Rama Rao, Dr Raghuveeer Rao and Dr. Vaidehi. Of these it is opt to mention that the work done by Dr. Rama Rao on soil fungi and Dr. Raghuveer Rao on hyphomycetous fungi, have strengthen mycological work in this region.
Having gone through mycological research work of India, I could see that there is dearth of knowledge on aquatic fungi and fungi on anaerobic substrates. This interest has grown enormously and resulted in the preparation of Ph.D. thesis which has fetched me not only degree Ph.D. but also added new wealth of fungi to the Indian sub-continent.
Though I have witnessed beautiful dances of zoospores, formation of zoosporangia and reproductive events and morphogenesis in a wide variety of aquatic fungi, my attention was drawn to one new fungus Subbaramyces aquatica, which could not be traced out for about five years by several mycologists including Dr. Booth.
I think in the year 1974 Prof. John Webster came to India for a conference and also visited my lab. My final thesis copy was ready for submission and this was shown to Prof. Webster. Having gone through it critically he was magnanimous to offer me a post doctoral fellowship at Exter, U.K. I was fortunate to have much of the training for water-borne conidial fungi under such a celebrated mycologist which I could not dream. Having come from a village and not exposed much to urban life also besides being from orthodox family I was fearing that whether I could come out successfully. Finally I got the UK fellowship to work under Prof. John. Having gone to UK started working on collection, identification and culturing of water-borne conidial fungi and all my hard work and commitment was appreciated by Prof. John Webster. Being vegetarian I could survive by cooking my food myself. One fine morning I got a letter from Late Prof. Ivor Isaac to come and deliver a lecture on soil fungal ecology. Hardly one week was left. Luckily I had exposure on this group when I was working for my PhD under Prof. P. Rama Rao. While delivering lecture I stressed more on taxonomy, classification, culturing of non-culturable fungi and impact of physico-chemical variables on the distribution of fungi and biological control of some soil-borne pathogens. Though I have spent 10 days at Swansea, Prof and Mrs. Issac’s affection and concern for me was unforgettable. Prof. John Webster is a strict disciplinarian, believes in work culture, hard work and honesty. He has allowed me to photocopy lot of literature also. He has also made me to be the examiner for a PhD student. I have no words to express my gratitude to Prof. John Webster and Mrs. Webster who have taught me methodological mycological research. Again I got invitation from CMI (CABI) Kew, London from Dr. Hawksworth then director to review isolates of India Thielavia. Later I moved to Kew and spent three months at CMI (CABI) and finalized review on Indian Thielavia. In that exercise one species was entirely different and scanning of the fungus under electron microscope (newly installed) resulted in the discovery of new genus Isia along with Dr. Hawksworth. At coffee table of CMI daily I could meet mycological stalwarts Dr. Ellis, Dr. Booth, Dr. Sutton, Dr. Mordue, Dr. Onions, Dr. Kirk and many others. Let me tell you very frankly that their work culture is really amazing. These experiences have given the needed boost, raised level of confidence and sufficient accuracy to go ahead with mycological work in our mother land which is rich in biodiversity with reference to fungi.
After landing like any other enthusiastic youngster I wanted to start intensive mycological research and many students came forward to do research under me at PG College of science at Saifabad. There was neither proper space nor any equipment. Myself and my students have built indigenous inoculation chamber, donated some money by each one and spent for the purchase of agar-agar, Petri dishes, test tubes and others. Luckily UGC came forward to give me some grant. Under these odd and adverse situations we have made huge collections, cultured many fungi, identified them upto species level and turned out eleven PhDs and more than 100 publications including discovery of many new fungi in a span of 5-7 years. The Labs’ name figured in many international forums also.
The Andhra Pradesh Akademy of sciences has recognized my work and felicitated with young scientist award. This has given me much more strength and augmented my desire to do more in this field. I cannot forget all those students who have put in their brains and hard work for turning out qualitative mycological research work inspite of having poor infrastructure and with little or no encouragement and appreciation from elders. Inspite of this my ambition to put Indian mycological research on international map has been doubled with much vigour, innovation, commitment and concern. Finally in 1984, I landed in main Department of Botany, Osmania University, where mycology was also a strong centre. Good infrastructure, library facilities and encouragement from my teachers and University administration paved the way for furthering of my research work. I had the opportunity of getting projects from UGC, CSIR, DST, DBT and Ministry of Environment and Forests.This R&D funding facilitated me to strengthen the students on Taxonomy and Biodiversity of fungi. My training under John Webster made me to work on conidial fungi from water and this has brought me a worthy name in mycological world.
When somebody shines and grows jealousies always hunt you. I am no exception to this. I was determined to work hard in spite of hurdles created. I removed all the pebbles and throns and moved forward to contribute for the growth of mycological research. Hats off to my students and in particular to the fungal world that have given me heeling hand and served as healthy tonic. I along with my contingent surveyed almost all forest localities, water-bodies, Eastern Ghats and all important places such as biosphere reserves in Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere in the country for the fungi. We have wet our feet in search of aquatic fungi, dusted our hands for soil fungi, raised our heads for air-borne fungi, looked deep down for litter fungi, enchanted the beauty of agarics, jelly fungi, stink horns, bracket fungi, higher fungi and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Having described 20 new genera, 120 new species and over 500 new additions to the fungi of India, we thought that our research must help humanity and it should be of some applied value.
From traditional mycology I have switched over to applied mycology. In this venture we have isolated several fungi which proved to have potential for fungal enzymes (cellulose, pectinase, laccase, amylase, protease etc). An attempt was also made to work on bio-control agents such as Trichoderma spp. which have also elaborated cellulase. Our work on post-harvest diseases of fruits and vegetables and their control was recognized by ICAR. Interestingly though I didn’t have exposure to AM fungi, I have started working on biodiversity, taxonomy and their role in agriculture and forestry. Infact it is AM fungal diversity made me to learn to identify them. I have gone through huge amount of literature of Mosse, Walker, Morton, Trappe, Koske, Harley and others and spent more man hours with microscope in observing them. This has given me confidence to go ahead. Though not number one but myself and my students are well recognized for our work on AM fungi. We raised eleven AM fungi in soil pot cultures and applied them as biofertilizers both in pot and field conditions on crop plants and forest plants.
The application of AM fungi as biofertilzer proved beneficial for oil seed crop plant, Tomato, Eucalyptus, teak, Casurina, Dalbergia, marigold, orchids and others. If not pioneers at least recognizable achievements have been made by us in this field.
Besides the above some contributions are made on keratinophilies, ascomycetes, lichens, myxomycetes and coprophilous fungi of Andhra Pradesh. Finally we have turned our tables on to the diversity and taxonomy of hyphomycetes and their role in human welfare, a huge task to complete before I take my last breath of my life.
Unfortunately interest in mycology is going down. University syllabi have not strengthened mycological aspects and are reduced to miniature items. R&D organizations always want more of application rather than basic studies. Is it possible to develop a technology without understanding concepts and basics? The golden era of mycological research and teaching experienced in past cannot, be experienced now. There are numerous fungi, worthy fungi, money fetching fungi in nature, but no mycologists to identify them. Taxonomists including mycologists have been kept away by so called biotechnologists, molecular biologists and R&D organizations also. I only see a ray of hope in youngsters who are really interested in fungi and it is this force which has to fight to get due share for fungi.

Fungi have made me to learn a lot and made me to live with all respect and dignity in the society.

FUNGI ARE BEAUTIFUL
BIODIVERSITY IS A RESOURCE MATERIAL FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY
TAXONOMY IS THE MOTHER OF ALL SCIENCES
NO FUNGI – NO FUTURE

YEAST, ASPERGILLUS, PENICILLIUM, CEPHALOSPORIUM AND OTHERS SHARE MORE THAN 50% WORLD’S BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET.

References
1. Manoharachary, C. 1981. The taxonomy and ecology of freshwater Phycomycetes from India. Rev. Life Sci. 1: 3-21.
2. Manoharachary, C. 1985. Aspects and prospects of water-borne conidial fungi. Adv. Biol. Res. 4(122): 160-183.
3. Manoharachary, C. 2004. Biodiversity, taxonomy, ecology, conservation and biotechnology of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Indian Phytopathol. 57(1): 1-6.
4. Swarupa Rani, S., Kunwar, I.K., Prasad, G.S. and Manoharachary, C. 2004. Glomus hyderabadensis, a new species: its taxonomy and phylogenetic comparison with related species. Mycotaxon 89(2): 245-253.
5. Manoharachary, C., Sridhar, R., Singh, R., Adholeya, A., Suryanarayana, T.S., Rawat, S. and Johri, B.N. 2005. Fungal diversity, distribution, conservation and prospecting of fungi from India. Curr. Sci. 89(1): 58-71.
6. Manoharachary, C. 2008. Hyphomycetous fungi for plant health and human wealth. Indian Mycol & Plant Pathol. 38(1): 1-17.