scholarly journals Spread of the invasive pathogen Lecanosticta acicola on species of Pinus in Bulgaria

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-90
Author(s):  
Margarita Georgieva

The brown spot needle blight, caused by the fungal pathogen Lecanosticta acicola, has been the most serious and damaging disease on needles of Pinus spp. in recent years. In Bulgaria, the pathogen was reported for the first time in 2017 in a generative plantation of Pinus sylvestris in the region of the State Forestry Ardino, the Eastern Rhodopes. The newly- established invasive pathogen is considered highly adaptable to new hosts and environmental conditions. The life cycle and symptoms of the disease strongly suggest that the new emerging pathogen has the potential to cause severe damages and is a serious threat to naturally distributed species of Pinus in the country. In the period 2018-2019, a spread of L. acicola from the initial outbreak was established throughout stands of P. sylvestris and P. nigra on the territory of Kardzhali District.

2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (No. 1) ◽  
pp. 16-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Jankovský ◽  
D. Palovčíková ◽  
M. Dvořák ◽  
M. Tomšovský

There are two records of brown spot needle blight caused by <I>L. acicola</I> in the Czech Republic up to date. Disease was first reported on June 2007 in National Nature Reserve (NNR) Červená Blata, South Bohemia. A more recent discovery of <I>L. acicola</I> took place on August 2008 in the NNR Borkovická Blata. The disease was observed on 10-60 year old <I>Pinus rotundata</I>. Both locations with infected trees are situated inside nature conservation sites under strict protection regimes that are located approximately 50 km apart. In both sites, <I>L. acicola</I> occurred simultaneously with <I>Dothistroma septospora</I>, the red band needle blight causal agent on Scots pine (<I>Pinus sylvestris</I>), bog pine (<I>P. rotundata</I>) and their hybrid (<I>P. × digenea</I>). However, infections of both diseases on the same tree have not yet been observed.


Plant Disease ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 96 (6) ◽  
pp. 914-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. T. Seo ◽  
M. J. Park ◽  
J. H. Park ◽  
H. D. Shin

Pinus thunbergii Parl., known as black pine, is a pine native to coastal areas of Japan and Korea. Because of its resistance to pollution and salt, it is planted as windbreakers along the coast. In March 2010, needle blight symptoms were found on several trees of black pine in Naju, southern Korea. Further surveys in 2010 and 2011 showed that these symptoms are rather common but disease incidence is less than 1%. Small, circular grayish green spots first appeared on the needles. The spots developed into brown bands reaching 1 to 2 mm long, sometimes with yellow margins. Dark olivaceous to dark grayish stromata were erumpent and conspicuous on the brown lesions in the later stage of disease development. Conidiophores were simple or occasionally branched, 1- to 2-septate, pale brown to olivaceous brown, and smooth walled. Conidia (n = 30) were olivaceous brown to grayish brown, verrucose, thick-walled, mildly curved, allantoid to fusiform, one- to five-septate (mostly three-septate), and 20 to 45 × 3.5 to 5 μm. Morphological characteristics of the fungus were consistent with those of Lecanosticta acicola (Thüm.) Syd. (anamorph of Mycosphaerella dearnessii M.E. Barr), previously known as the causal agent of brown spot needle blight of pines (2,4). The teleomorph was not observed. On potato dextrose agar, single-spore cultures of three isolates were obtained from conidia sporulating on needles. An isolate was preserved at the Korean Agricultural Culture Collection (Accession No. KACC44982). Genomic DNA was extracted using the DNeasy Plant Mini DNA Extraction Kit (Qiagen Inc., Valencia, CA) and the complete internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of rDNA was amplified and sequenced with the primers ITS1/ITS4. The resulting ITS sequence of 543 bp was deposited in GenBank (Accession No. JQ245448). A GenBank BLAST search produced an exact match for the sequences of M. dearnessii (= L. acicola) on P. mugo Tura from Lithuania (HM367708) and P. radiata D. Don from France (GU214663), with 100% sequence similarity. To conduct a pathogenicity test, a conidial suspension (approx. 2 × 105 conidia/ml) was prepared by harvesting conidia from 5-week-old cultures of KACC44982 and sprayed onto the needles of five 3-year-old healthy seedlings. Five noninoculated seedlings of the same age served as controls. Inoculated and noninoculated plants were kept in humid chambers for 48 h in a glasshouse. After 28 days, typical leaf spot symptoms started to develop on the needles of inoculated plants. The fungus, L. acicola, was reisolated from those lesions, confirming Koch's postulates. No symptoms were observed on control plants. The disease has been previously reported on several species of Pinus in the Americas (1) and recently in China (3), Japan (4), and Europe (2). To our knowledge, this is the first report of the Lecanosticta-Pinus association in Korea. Occurrence of the disease in Korea is a new threat to the health of black pine, especially in nursery plots. References: (1) D. F. Farr and A. Y. Rossman. Fungal Databases. Systematic Mycology and Microbiology Laboratory, ARS, USDA. Retrieved from http://nt.arsgrin.gov/fungaldatabases/ December 2011. (2) L. Jankovsky et al. Plant Protect. Sci. 45:16, 2009. (3) C. Li et al. J. Nanjing Inst. For. 1986:11, 1986. (4) Y. Suto and D. Ougi. Mycoscience 39:319, 1998.


Plant Disease ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 84 (8) ◽  
pp. 922-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. La Porta ◽  
P. Capretti

The pathogen Mycosphaerella dearnessii Barr. (syn. Scirrhia acicola; anamorph Lecanosticta acicola), the causal agent of brown spot needle blight, was observed on Pinus mugo in the Botanical Garden in Gardone (Brescia), on the western side of Garda Lake in northeastern Italy. Symptoms were first noticed in the spring of 1997 by Klaus Lang (University of Freising, Germany). Two years later, all 12 of the P. mugo present in the Garden exhibited extensive necrosis, and defoliation of the crown starting from the bottom upward was more prevalent on the shaded portion of infected trees. The trees were about 50 years old and 2.0 to 2.5 m in height. Symptomatic needles were confined to the 2- and 3-year old internodes. Infected needles had several dark to purplish-brown spots surrounded by green tissue and usually had dead tips. Pycnidia and conidia of Lecanosticta acicola were observed. Conidia were 4-celled, curved, pointed at one end and blunt at the other, pale olive-brown and 20 to 30 × 3 to 4 μm. The fungus was isolated in pure culture. The pathogen causes serious losses in China, eastern United States, and central and South America, but was observed for the first time in Europe only 30 years ago. It is a major cause of needle blight on several European pine species, especially P. sylvestris, P. nigra, and P. mugo. In the last 7 years, there have been reports of the fungus in pine stands, first in France, Aquitaine, and the western Pyrenees on P. radiata (3), and more recently on P. mugo in the Alps in Austria (1), Switzerland (2), and southern Germany (4). This record of the fungus near Lake Garda poses a new serious threat especially for the pine plantations of P. nigra and P. sylvestris in the more humid locations in the Alps, Apennines, and elsewhere in the mountains of southern Europe where the climatic conditions are similar to that of central Europe. This is the first report of M. dearnessii on the southern slopes of the Alps and in Italy. References: (1) M. Brandstetter and T. Cech. Oesterreichische Forstzeitung 110:35, 1999. (2) O. Holdenrieder and T. N. Sieber. Eur. J. For. Pathol. 25:293, 1995. (3) A. Levy and C. Lafaurie. Phytoma 463:33, 1994. (4) L. Pehl L. Nachrichtenbl. Dtsch. Pflanzenschutzdienstes 47:305, 1995.


2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 587-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalev Adamson ◽  
Rein Drenkhan ◽  
Märt Hanso

Author(s):  
E. Punithalingam

Abstract A description is provided for Scirrhia acicola[Mycosphaerella dearnessii]. Information is included on the disease caused by the organism, its transmission, geographical distribution, and hosts. HOSTS: On pines, including Pinus palustris, P. tueda, P. halepensis, P. nigra (and varieties), P. pinaster, P. pinea, P. sylvestris, P. thunbergii, P. ponderosa, P. strobus, P. monticola, P. attenuata, P. caribaea, P. elliottii, P. radiata, P. echinata, P. glabra, P. rigida, P. serotina, P. sondereggii, P. virginiana. DISEASE: Brown spot needle blight (11, 813; 41, 185). GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION: Canada (46, 1929); USA (Southern States, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin); USSR (Republic of Georgia) (46, 3231). (CMI Map 482, ed. 1, 1971). TRANSMISSION: By splash-dispersed, airborne conidia from infected foliage on the tree or after the needles have been cast. The role of ascospores in spread of brown spot needle blight is not known; endospores (45, 3229) have also been described. The incubation period has been found by various authors to be 28-65 days (46, 2329), 2-3 months for young foliage of P. palustris (40, 636) and 4-7 months for old foliage of P. tueda (46, 3230). Accounts of the effect of age of foliage on susceptibility also vary (40, 636; 46, 3230).


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