Molecular and Pathogenic Characterization of <i>Fusarium</i> Species Associated with Corm Rot Disease in Saffron from China
2022
Seyed Ali Mirghasempour | David J. Studholme | Weiliang Chen | Weidong Zhu | Bizeng Mao
Saffron (<i>Crocus sativus</i> L.) is a commercial spice crop well-known throughout the world, valued for culinary, colorant, and pharmaceutical purposes. In China, <i>Fusarium nirenbergiae</i> was detected as causative agent of saffron corm rot, the most pervasive disease for the first time in 2020. In the present study, 261 <i>Fusarium</i>-like isolates were recovered from 120 rotted corms in four saffron producing fields at Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Yunnan provinces, China, in 2021. A combination of morpho-cultural features and multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) of the concatenated <i>rpb2</i> (DNA-directed RNA polymerase II largest subunit) and <i>tef1</i> (translation elongation factor 1-α) partial sequences showed that the isolates from saffron belong to <i>Fusarium nirenbergiae</i> as well as <i>F. commune</i>, and <i>F. annulatum</i> with isolation frequencies of 58.2%, 26.8%, and 14.9%, respectively. Notably, <i>F. commune</i> was more prevalent than <i>F. annulatum</i> in the collected samples. Pathogenicity tests confirmed that both species were pathogenic on saffron corm. This is the first report of <i>F. annulatum</i> and <i>F. commune</i> causing corm rot of saffron, globally. Outcomes of the current research demonstrate that <i>Fusarium</i> spp. associated with saffron corm rot are more diverse than previously reported. Furthermore, some plants were infected by two or more <i>Fusarium</i> species. Our findings broaden knowledge about <i>Fusarium</i> spp. that inflict corm rot and assist the development of control measures.
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