Hyo-Won Choi*, Sung Kee Hong, Young Kee Lee and Wan Gyu Kim
National Academy of Agricultural Science, RDA, Suwon 441-707, Korea
Correspondence to hyon338@korea.kr
Korean Journal of Mycology (Kor J Mycol) September 30, 2013, 41(3):142-148.
https://doi.org/10.4489/KJM.2013.41.3.142
Received August 30, 2013; Revised September 12, 2013; Accepted September 12, 2013
Published: September 30, 2013.
© The Korean Society of Mycology
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor Moench) was traditionally grown on a small scale, however, at present its cultivation is getting momentum in terms of food and animal feed crop throughtout the Korea. Grain mold symptoms of the plant were frequently observed during disease surveys in Korea from 2007 to 2009. The symptoms were highly variable. Severely infected grain was fully covered with mold and partially infected grain may look normal or discolored. Ninety isolates of Fusarium species were obtained from the diseased plants collected from several locations in the country. Among the collected Fusarium isolates, 41 were identified as Fusarium thapsinum, 23 as F. proliferatum, 12 as F. graminearum, 5 as F. incarnatum, and 3 as F. equiseti based on their morphological and cultural characteristics. Elongation factor 1 alpha gene sequences of the isolates were used for phylogenetic analysis. Analyses of the sequences revealed that the isolates were confirmed to be identical with related species of NCBI GenBank. Pathogenicity tests showed that three dominant species, F. thapsinum, F. proliferatum and F. graminearum were strongly virulent to grains of sorghum. This study is the first report of sorghum grain mold caused by Fusarium species in Korea.
Fusarium species, Grain mold, Sorghum