Maize (Zea mays L.) is cultivated in 8.6 million ha in India with a total production of 22.67 million tonnes and avg. yield of 27.52 tonnes/ha in 2014 ( http://faostat3. fao. org/download/Q/QC/E). In September 2012, symptoms of Fusarium stalk rot were observed on maize cultivar PAC 740 (Advanta Ltd., Hyderabad, India) grown in a field in Tinsukia, Assam, northeast India (27.5 N; 95.37 E; elev. 116 m). Symptomatic plants were collected for study. External symptoms included softening and reddish coloration of the stalks near the first three internodes from the bottom. Internally, the pith appeared to be soft, disintegrating, and light brown to reddish. Lodging was observed in two plants out of a total of seven exhibiting visible external symptoms. The leaves and stalks of the lodged plants were dry and tan. Small pieces of infected stems were surface sterilized in a 5% aqueous solution of NaClO for 1 min, rinsed 3 times with sterile distilled water and dried in a laminar air flow cabinet. Then, 1 to 2 pieces per plate were transferred to potato dextrose agar (PDA) media supplemented with 0.5 g/liter ampicillin and incubated at 25 C for 5 to 7 days. The isolates were single-spore subcultured on PDA and incubated at 25 C for two weeks ( Leslie and Summerell 2006). The mycelia were initially white and gradually developed a blackish pigmentation; the microconidia were single-celled, oval to club-shaped, 4.4 to 11.55× 1.1 to 3.3 µm (avg. 6.6× 1.65 µm) arranged in catenation from monophialides. The morphological characteristics were consistent with those of Fusarium verticillioides (Sacc. amplified using the primers ITS1 and ITS4 ( White et al. 1990 with those deposited in GenBank and the isolate showed 99% similarity with Gibberella moniliformis strain SA3 (EU151482 2009 day-old PAC 740 plants were injected with 2 ml microconidial suspension (107conidia/ml et al. 1997 harvested from a 10-day-old culture in potato dextrose broth. Ten to 12 days post inoculation (dpi), inoculated plants developed characteristic