Rhizoctonia solani

Rhizoctonia solani is a fungal species in the order Cantharellales that spreads through hyphae and hardened resting structures called sclerotia rather than through visible fruiting bodies. As a facultative plant pathogen, it causes root rot, damping off and wire stem in seedlings, black scurf on potato tubers, and sheath blight in rice, a disease considered the second most damaging rice disease after rice blast. Its host range is unusually broad, extending to potatoes, cereals, soybeans, sugar beets, cucumbers, maize, tomatoes and cabbages across many growing regions. In the United States alone, infections have been reported to cause yield losses ranging from twenty five to one hundred percent along with increased soil residue on harvested tubers and reduced crop quality, making integrated management through crop rotation, resistant varieties and field conditions an ongoing necessity.