Timber Degrading Fungi in Sawmills of Gujarat, India

Timer decay is caused by primarily enzymatic activities of microorganisms. For the first time fungal diversity of timber degrading fungi was studied in Gujarat, India. Timber Degrading Fungi belonging to Aphyllophorales are economically important as many of these cause serious damage in sawmills of Gujarat. To find out the association of the timber degrading fungi and timber decay problems in sawmills a survey was conducted during 2007 to 2011 in different sawmills of 5 districts of Gujarat i.e. Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Bharuch, Rajkot and Jamnagar. In the present study teak wood present in sawmills was infected with 14 types of fungi in which Lenzites sterioides and Trametes versicolor damaged the wood severely was reported for the first time. In all 94 sawmills were surveyed, the 28 sawmills were from Vadodara, 29 from Ahmedabad, 12 from Bharuch, 21 from Rajkot and 4 from Jamnagar. Out of 94 sawmills survyed, 84 sawmills were having timber rotting fungi associated with wood. Maximum fifteen and thirteen fungal species were observed in saw mills of Chhani road, followed by 11 in Station road, 7 in Dhabhoi road and 6 in Harni, Vadodara. Fours woods uninfected are Beyo, Marinty, Ash, and Arjun. Fourteen different types of fungi were found associated with teak, followed by seven in pinus, madhuca, Acacia nilotica, six in babul, neem, four in tamarind, Pithacoelobium and three in mango, Eucalyptus, African Mahagoni, Kapoor, Peltophoram rouxburghii, Derris pinnata wood respectively. The commonly observed timber decaying fungi were Schizophyllum commune , Flavodon flavus and Ganoderma lucidum belonging to Basidiomycota. Ascomycota members included was Daldinia concentrica and Xylaria polymorpha.


INTRODUCTION
The total forest cover in India according to the latest State of Forest Report 2003 is 67.83 m ha and this constitutes 20.64 % of the geographic area. The state of Gujarat is one of the progressive states in the western part of India with an area of 196,024 sq. km. While the recorded forest area is 19,393 sq.km, which is 9.89 % of the total geographical area. The

International Letters of Natural Sciences
Online: 2013-12-17 ISSN: 2300-9675, Vol. 7, pp 13-22 doi:10.56431/p-ybb088 CC BY 4.0. Published by Academic Open Access LTD, 2014 production of fuel and timber is much less than the demand. The forest area which produces timber and fuel wood is only 63.5 % of the recorded area. 90 percent of forest raw material is processed by 25,000 saw mills and a larger number of cottage units, who would also lay claims on forests.
Natural teak forest in India covers about 8,900,000 ha (Tewari, 1992); The more important teak forests, however, occur in Hoshangabad Betul (Madhya Pradesh), Chanda and Melghat (Maharashtra) Wynaad (Kerala), Anamalai hills (Tamil Nadu) and North Kanara (Karnataka). Timber degrading fungi belonging to Aphyllophorales (Basidiomycetes) are economically important as many of these are pathogens of forest trees and cause serious damage. These wood-rotting fungi are also important in the forest ecosystem as they are active decomposers of organic matter (Natarajan, Kolandavelu 1998). They can be a valuable resource for few pharmaceuticals, food production, bioremediation of toxic chemical spills (Kirk et al. 1992a), biopulping and other industrial uses (Akhtar et al. 1993, Kirk et al. 1992b).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Ninety four saw mills were surveyed in Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Jambusar, Bharuch, Rajkot and Jamnagar during June 2006 to February 2011 to find out timber degrading fungi and problems related to the wood decay in 5 districts. The infected wood along with sporophores were brought to the laboratory to identify the associated fungi.

1. Identification of Fungi
Basidiomes were studied using macroscopic (eg: size, colour, number of pores/mm, length of tubes) and microscopic (presence/absence of structures, dimensions, vegetative and reproductive characters (Ryvarden 1991). Measurements were made from slide preparations. Fungi were stained with 1 % aqueous Pholoxine and 5 % KOH. Specimens were identified to species level using specialized references (Eriksson, Ryvarden 1975) and CBS Aphyllophorales database (www.cbs.knaw.nl/databases/). Certain specimens were sent to The Forest Research Institute, Dehradun for final confirmation. These fungi are kept in fungal collection of Botany Department of The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat, India.

1. Survey of Saw Mills
To find out the association of the timber degrading fungi and study the timber decay problems in sawmills a survey was conducted during last 5 years in different sawmills of i) Vadodara, ii) Ahmedabad, iii) Bharuch, iv) Rajkot and v) Jamnagar. In all 94 sawmills were surveyed from the Gujarat state, in which 28 sawmills were from Vadodara, 29 from Ahmedabad, 12 from Bharuch, 21 from Rajkot and 4 from Jamnagar. The location of these 5 districts is depicted in (Figure 1) and results are recorded in Tables 1, 2
The timber decaying fungi associated with different woods in 94 sawmills produced huge amount of fungal spores dispersed in that area. The workers of sawmills surveyed were facing some respiratory problems. This may be because of the fungal spores inhalation which might be present in the air.
In most sawmills around the world, trees are harvested into logs and stored in the forest or in a log yard for a period of time before being sawn into lumber. These logs may be attacked by various pigment producing fungi. Since hardwood species are used to a great extent in furniture manufacturing and in the making of other valuable wood products, the reduction of wood staining fungi, molds, and decay fungi in these species has a significant economic impact. Studies on airborne fungal spores which are produced from different wood inhabiting fungi are undertaken by various scientists (Verhoeff and Burge, 1997). People who are constantly exposed to an indoor environment where works on organic substances and their byproducts are dealt with, may often develop respiratory disorders. Sawmill workers may be exposed at work to the inhalation of various allergenic and immunotoxic agents, comprising of wood derivatives (e.g. terpenes, resin acids) and microorganisms associated with timber (Dennekamp et al., 1999). In the present sudy also different fungi like Aspergillus niger, A. flavus, A. fumigatus, A. awamorii, producing toxins were studied. Inhalation of fungal spores may result into decrease in lung function, bronchial hyperresponsiveness and respiratory disorders, such as: organic dust toxic syndrome (ODTS), allergic alveolitis, asthma, nonasthmatic chronic airflow obstruction, chronic bronchitis, mucous membrane irritation syndrome (MMI) and rhinitis (Mandryk, 2000). in the present paper also the workers working in sawmills of gujarat were suffereing from allergic, chronic, respiratory problems According to Wealth of India, Kerala has largest number of sawmills. A recent estimate shows more than 25000 registered sawmill presenting Gujarat. Airborne fungi occurring in different indoor environments such as libraries, markets, flour mills, hospital wards etc., have been reported from different parts of India (Sharma and Datta, 2001). But no such data is available for number and type of fungi occurring in the environment of saw mills. Few reports of such studies are however available from countries like Scandinavia, France, Canad and Poland (Dutkiewicz et al., 2001). The studied conducted in Poland showed that the greatest concentrations of microorganisms in sawmills processing coniferous wood was noted at debarking stage of pine logs (Dutkiewicz et al., 2001). In the present study also gratest concentration of fungal spores, decay fungi was identified from the sawmiils of Gujarat, Inida.

Diversity of Mitosporic Fungi in saw mills
In the present study Aspergillus flavus, A. niger, Chaetomium globosum, Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, Fusarium moniliforme, F. pallidoroseum, Lasiodiplodia theobromae, Nectria cinnabarina, Phomopsis salmalica, Trichoderma harzianum, and T. viride were found associated with different timbers present in five district of Gujarat. Most dominant invaders of woods were A. niger A. flavus, T. harzianum and T. viride. The high risk genera like Aspergillus and Trichoderma were observed. In the present study it was found in a number of woods which were infected by the timber decaying fungi, dehisces different concentration and composition of fungal spores. The study revealed high prevalence of predominantly allergenic fungal spores in certain sawmills of the five districts of Gujarat. Padmanabhan and Naya (2004) found association of Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium, Nigrospora, Ganoderma, "other basidiospores" and ascospores in air. They further found that Aspergillus, and Penicillium were the two most dominant spore types in the indoor air, which contributed 51.19% and Cladosporium, the most dominant spore type in the outdoor contributed 44.75% of the total spores. In a similar survey conducted in Eastern Canadian sawmills by Caroline and Anne (2000) found that Penicillium spp were the most frequently isolated microfungi. Aerobiologists have found that the two high allergy risk genera like the presence of A. fumigatus and various species of Mucor, Trichoderma and Phoma could adversely affect the man power working in these establishments (Simeray et al., 1997). The concentration and composition of airborne microflora in sawmills may vary to a great degree depending on the kind of timber being processed and the technology of production (Mandryk, 2000). The type of wood processed may influence the composition of the mycoflora present in the atmosphere. Penicillium spp predominated in conifer and Cladosporium spp in hardwood sawmills (Simeray et al., 1997). The pollution of air with microorganisms has been reported from the primary or secondary infection of timber (Rask-Andersen 1994). The primary infection develops in timber logs stored in forests and in lumber yards, initially with bacteria (described as "pioneer organisms") and then with fungi which may eventually cause wood decay (Käärik 1975 from Bharuch and 10 samples from Jamnagar were associated with timber decaying fungi. 29 species of timber deteriorating fungi were identified from vadaodara in which 13 belonged to group Basidiomycota, 8 belongs to group Ascomycota and Mitosporic fungi. Timber deteriorating fungi identified from Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bharuch, and Jamnagar was 14, 10, and 6 species respectively. According to an old survey there were 1643 sawmills in Gujarat in 1977 which increased to 4079 in 1996 (Jose and Shah 2001). But in the present paper different sawmills were identified with fungal infection, in which Fifteen and thirteen fungal species were observed in Chhani road, Vadodara. 5 fungal species were recorded in Jambhusar and 3 fungal species were observed in Ahmadabad. Teak wood is highly valued due to appearance and its wood properties including high durability and resistance to chemicals (Sandermann and Dietrichs, 1951). But in our survey reveled that teak wood was infected with 14 types of fungi in which Lenzites sterioides and Trametes versicolor damaged the wood severely. Commonly used timbers infected with seven types of fungi in Pinus, Madhuca, Acacia nilotica, six in Babul, Neem, four in Tamarind, Pithacoelobium and three in Mango, Eucalyptus, African Mahagoni, Kapoor, Peltophoram rouxburghii, Derris pinnata respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
For the first time fungal diversity of timber degrading fungi was studied in Gujarat, India. In the present study teak wood present in sawmills was infected with 14 types of fungi in which Lenzites sterioides and Trametes versicolor damaged the wood severely was reported for the first time. Gratest concentration of fungal spores, decay fungi was identified from the sawmiils of Gujarat, Inida. Aspergillus niger, A. flavus, A. fumigatus, A. awamorii producing toxins were reported from sawmills of Gujarat studied. The workers working in sawmills of gujarat which contain teak woods were suffereing from allergic, chronic, respiratory problems was reoprted for the first time.