The Glycyrrhiza glabra, commonly known as Licorice, family Fabaceae, is cultivated as an important medicinal herb in the various parts of South East Asia (India, China) and Southern Europe (Greece, France). In India, Licorice is used as traditional medicine to treat inflammations, liver diseases, throat infections and arthritis (Anonymous. 2001). Extract of licorice root has been reported as potential antifungal (Bahraminejad et al. 2011). During rainy season of 2010 approximately 15% Licorice plants of variable ages, 5 months to 2 year old exhibited wilting symptoms in nursery and experimental fields at CSIR-CIMAP, Lucknow. Initial symptoms appeared as yellowing and defoliation followed by drying of infected plants before maturity (Fig 1A). Reddish brown necrotic lesions appeared on the roots and more often advanced to the collar region of the plants (Fig. 1B). Isolation of causal organism from affected tissues of root and collar regions were performed on potato dextrose agar (PDA) amended with 100 ppm streptomycin sulfate. Fungal colonies were initially white with abundant fluffy aerial hyphae, 4.3-4.5 µm, later turned brown to tan brown. The nuclear condition of hyphal cells were determined on cultures grown on 2% water agar (WA) at 25°C and stained with bisbenzamide (Hoechst 33258). The morphological and microscopic characteristics of the isolate resembled those of binucleate Rhizoctonia (BNR) (telomorph: Ceratobasidium sp Rogers 1935) (Sneh et al. 1991). Amplification of the ITS region (663bp) of rDNA was achieved by using universal primers ITS1/ITS4, cloned, sequenced and data deposited in the NCBI Genbank (KU659862). NCBI BLASTn (http:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast) exhibited 100% match with Ceratobasidium AG-A (HQ270171) and 98-100% resemblance with binucleate Rhizoctonia sp AG-A (KP893156, JX885460 and JX885461) (Li et al. 2014; Zhong et al. 2016). Analysis of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region confirmed the pathogen as Rhizoctonia sp AG-A. To check the pathogenicity, inoculum of the fungus was prepared on autoclaved soil:sand:cornmeal mixture (6:3:1 v/v) in Erlenmeyer flasks for 14 days at 28+ 2°C and 20 gm inoculum was added to soil around the basal portion of 10 plants in 20 cm earthen pots while three additional uninoculated plants served as controls. Both inoculated and control plants were kept at 28+ 2°C in humidity (90%) chamber for 5 days and thereafter pots were shifted in the glasshouse at 28+ 2°C for monitoring the development of disease symptoms. Initial symptoms developed as yellowing of the leaves after 12-15 days while typical disease symptoms appeared after 28-30 days of inoculation. Control plants were remained free from infection. Associated pathogen re-isolated and identified on the basis of cultural and molecular analysis as binucleate Rhizoctonia (BNR) AG-A, fulfilling Koch's postulates. To best of our knowledge, this is the first report of binucleate Rhizoctonia AG-A causing root rot and collar rot of Licorice in India and Worldwide. However, Rhizoctonia sp AG-A prove to be potential threat to the plants of Licorice resulted in the reduction of the crop yield. References: (1) Anonymous. 2001. The Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India. The Controller of Publication, India. (2) Bahraminejad, S., et al. 2011. Afr. J. Biotechnol. 10:16193 (3) Li, Z. Y., et al. 2014. Plant Dis. 98:1587. (4) Sneh, B., et al. 1991. Identification of Rhizoctonia Species. The American Phytopathological Society Press, St. Paul, MN.. (5) Zhong, S., et al. 2016. Plant Dis. 100:225. Caption:Fig.1 1A, Symptoms of root rot and collar rot on G. glabra caused by BNR AG-A. 1B, Close view of necrotic lesion on collar region of plant