Professional Documents
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DOI 10.1007/s10327-011-0295-0
DISEASE NOTE
Received: 27 September 2010 / Accepted: 16 December 2010 / Published online: 14 January 2011
The Phytopathological Society of Japan and Springer 2011
Abstract Rotting of roots and stem bases and wilting of Gentianaceae, is a popular and important market flower in
entire plants were found on a gentianaceous flowering Japan (Tomioka 2004). As its production has developed
plant, prairie gentian (Eustoma grandiflorum), grown in nationwide, the plant has been affected by several diseases
Kagawa Prefecture in the southwest region of Japan in including those caused by soilborne fungal species of
April 2001. A mitosporic fungus, isolated repeatedly from Fusarium, Pythium, Rhizoctonia, Sclerotium (Anonymous
the diseased plants, was identified as a species belonging to 2000). Rotting of roots and stem bases and wilting of entire
the clade 3 of Fusarium solani species complex based on plants of prairie gentian, asymptomatic of a soilborne
the morphology and the sequence of the translation elon- Fusarium species, were found on potted plants of cv.
gation factor gene. It was demonstrated to cause the disease Fukushihai that were grown in glasshouses at 2228C for
by inoculating potted plants and reisolating the fungus studies on cut flower productivity in Zentsuji City, Kagawa
from the diseased plants. We propose the name Fusarium Prefecture in the southwest region of Japan in April 2001.
root rot of prairie gentian for this disease. We isolated and identified the causal pathogen and inocu-
lated the host plants with the isolates to confirm pathoge-
Keywords Fusarium root rot Prairie gentian nicity and presence of the causal agent.
Fusarium solani species complex
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oblong-ellipsoid, 01 septate and 616 9 24 lm growth of 5.8 mm/day at 30C. Neither sclerotium nor
(Fig. 1h). Macroconidia were falcate with a foot-like cell, teleomorph was found with the isolate. The morphological
13(5) septate and 1238(66) 9 34(5) lm (Fig. 1i). and cultural characters of the mitosporic isolate agreed
Chlamydospores with a single septum were often produced well with traditional descriptions of Fusarium solani
at the tips of hyphae in old cultures (Fig. 1j). The isolate (Martius) Saccardo (Domsch et al. 1980; Gerlach and
grew on PDA plates in the dark at 1038C with maximum Nirenberg 1982; von Arx 1987).
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Fig. 2 Phylogenic tree for isolate EF2 and the Fusarium solani isolates in the Agricultural Research Service Culture Collection at the
species complex constructed using neighbor-joining analysis of the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, USA). The
DNA sequence of the translation elongation factor 1a gene-coding sequence for isolate NRRL22316, classified as Nectria atrofusca
region. Sequence data were retrieved from the DDBJ/EMBL/ (Schweinitz) Ellis & Everhart (AF178361), was used as the outgroup.
GenBank databases (accession numbers begin with AF; numbers Numbers above nodes represent bootstrap values C50% from 1000
starting with NRRL are the accession numbers of the respective replications
Based on extensive phylogenetic analyses of typical trunk blight of Japanese pepper [Xanthoxylum piperitum
strains of F. solani and related isolates, the Fusarium (L.) De Candolle, the Rutaceae] (Sakurai and Matuo 1961).
solani species complex comprises at least 26 phylogeneti- We do not, however, consider it appropriate to identify
cally distinct species (ODonnell 2000). Simple use of the isolate EF2 as the forma specialis because of the large
scientific name F. solani as a taxon without specifying sequence difference. We need to wait for taxonomic rear-
its detailed phylogenetic position, however, may cause rangement of the F. solani species complex in order to
serious taxonomic confusion regarding the fungal group. assign a specific epithet to isolate EF2. Isolate EF2 was
Three large clades, clades 13, have been identified within deposited in the Genebank, National Institute of Agrobio-
the F. solani species complex through molecular phylo- logical Sciences as accession MAFF238881, and its DNA
genic analyses using DNA sequence data of the translation sequence data of TEF was registered in the DNA databases
elongation factor 1a gene-coding region (TEF) (ODonnell as accession AB426618.
2000). We therefore tried to determine the phylogenetic
position of the isolated fungus within the complex. On the
basis of results of analyses of TEF amplified with the Pathogenicity
primers of EF-1H and EF-2T (ODonnell et al. 1998),
isolate EF2 was classified into clade 3 (Fig. 2) and had Plants of prairie gentian, cv. Fukushihai, grown to the 8- to
97.0% homology with data in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank 10-leaf stages in pots (9 cm in diameter) with composite
databases for Fusarium solani f. sp. xanthoxyli Sakurai & soil of equal parts of vermiculite and field soil in a glass-
Matuo (MP-IV; AF178328 and AF178336), which causes house at 2228C for 2 months were inoculated with
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