Elsevier

Crop Protection

Volume 137, November 2020, 105209
Crop Protection

Short communication
Occurrence of dieback disease caused by Fusarium equiseti on Dendrobium officinale in China

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2020.105209Get rights and content

Highlights

  • First report of Fusarium equiseti causing dieback disease of Dendrobium officinale in China.

  • Fungal physical characteristics and ITS, IGS and EF sequences.

  • Koch's postulates were fulfilled after fungal infection on Dendrobium officinale.

  • The results can be used for prevent dieback disease of Dendrobium officinale.

Abstract

Dendrobium officinale is a rare plant of Orchidaceae with considerable medical uses. It is also an important undergrowth plant. It can prevent many chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension. In 2019, dieback disease was observed on D. officinale in China's Fujian Province. We describe the cultural characteristics and phylogeny of Fusarium equiseti in China. The pathogenicity of the isolates was confirmed using Koch's postulates. Currently, this is the first report to indicate that the causal agent of dieback disease on D. officinale is F. equiseti.

Introduction

Dendrobium officinale is an edible plant with considerable medicinal and aesthetic value (Li et al., 2004; Zhang et al., 2006). Since 2008, the D. officinale planting industry has been developing rapidly, and the planting region is distributed in many provinces of the south of China (Li et al., 2013, Li et al., 2017; Li and Zang, 2015). In 2019, pronounced symptoms of dieback disease were observed on D. officinale cultivated in Fujian Province, China, especially in Gutian City. In the most affected areas, almost 50% of the fields were destroyed. The leaves were wilted, and the tips of the stems were dried and dead, which was destructive to both the plant's medical and aesthetic value (Fig. 1 a). We collected diseased plants to identify the organism associated with the withered tips. The fungal pathogen was isolated, morphologically and phylogenetically described, inoculated on the tips of fresh stems, and re-isolated from stems that displayed dieback disease. This work provides the first identification and description of Fusarium equiseti as a causal agent of dieback disease in D. officinale in China.

Section snippets

Isolation and morphological characterization

Symptomatic tips of D. officinale stems were collected from Fujian Province in China in 2019. Tip samples of approximately 2 × 5 mm each were taken from the margin of necroses at the stem base of three plants and were immediately immersed in 75% ethyl alcohol for 45 s and rinsed five times in sterile distilled water. Small pieces of tissue were removed and plated on potato dextrose agar (PDA). The isolates were called DFS (D. officinale Fusarium equiseti strain). One group of pure isolate

Results

The isolates were obtained from symptomatic tips of D. officinale stems. We only isolated one strain. Colonies exhibited the following morphological characteristics: 4 days in the dark, the colonies were whitish and cottony, pale luteous in color in the rear on the PDA, and the average diameter was 4.8 cm (Fig. 1c); under 12/12-h light and dark conditions, the colonies were pink and orange, long and loose with undulating edges and circular growth patterns. The rear of each colony was light

Discussion

In China, Fusarium equiseti has been reported to cause wilt disease on Chinese cabbage, Asparagus officinalis Linn, and Polygonum capitaturn (Yan et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2017; Ren et al., 2018). However, our study is the first to isolate and describe F. equiseti on tips of D. officinale stems, and more specifically, in a subtropical region of southern China. It is also the first study to reproduce symptoms on the tips of D. officinale stems. Nevertheless, knowledge about the pathogenicity of

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Mengmeng Guo: Writing - review & editing. Benjin Li: Formal analysis, Validation. Rongbo Wang: Validation. Peiqing Liu: Validation. Qinghe Chen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

All the authors declare no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Major Project of Fujian Province (2017NZ0003-1), and Innovation Team of Plant Protection, Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (STIT2017-1-8), Technical specification for prevention and treatment of diseases and insect pests on Paris polyphylla (ZYBZH-Y-FJ-09).

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