First Report of Fruit Rot Caused by Fusarium decemcellulare in Apples in Korea

Seung-Yeol  Lee1   Su-Jin  Park1   Jae-Jin  Lee1   Chang-Gi   Back12   Leonid N.   Ten1   In-Kyu   Kang1   Hee-Young   Jung1,*   

1College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Kyungpook National University
2National Institute of Horticultural and Herbal Science

Abstract

In 2014, abnormal brown spots were observed on Hongro apples in fields in Gyeongsangbuk-do Province and during low-temperature storage. The spots were round, blight brown, and different from the symptoms of previously reported apple diseases. A fungal pathogen was isolated and cultured on potato dextrose agar, and it was morphologically similar to Fusarium decemcellulare. A pathogenicity test showed the same brown spots on both wounded and unwounded Hongro and Fuji apple cultivars. RPB1 and RPB2 sequences of F. decemcellulare KNU-GC01 matched with those of F. decemcellulare NRRL 13412 (98.3% and 97.6% similarities, respectively); both strains clustered together in the phylogenetic tree, indicating their close relationship at the species level. Therefore, F. decemcellulare is a newly reported pathogen that causes brown spots on apples in Korea.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science and Technology Development (Project No. PJ0104812016), Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.

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