Fusarium ear blight (FEB), is a fungal disease of cereals, including wheat, barley, oats, rye and triticale. FEB is caused by a range of Fusarium fungi, which infects the heads of the crop, reducing grain yield. The disease is often associated with contamination by mycotoxins produced by the fungi already when the crop is growing in the field. The disease can cause severe economic losses as mycotoxin-contaminated grain cannot be sold for food or feed.
Botrytis cinerea is a necrotrophic fungus that affects many plant species, although its most notable hosts may be wine grapes. In viticulture, it is commonly known as "botrytis bunch rot"; in horticulture, it is usually called "grey mould" or "gray mold".
Fusarium wilt is a common vascular wilt fungal disease, exhibiting symptoms similar to Verticillium wilt. This disease has been investigated extensively since the early years of this century. The pathogen that causes Fusarium wilt is Fusarium oxysporum. The species is further divided into formae speciales based on host plant.
Trichoderma viride is a fungus and a biofungicide.
Phytophthora palmivora is an oomycete that causes bud-rot of palms, fruit-rot or kole-roga of coconut and areca nut. These are among the most serious diseases caused by fungi and moulds in South India. It occurs almost every year in Malnad, Mysore, North & South Kanara, Malabar and other areas. Similar diseases of palms are also known to occur in Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and Sumatra. The causative organism was first identified as P. palmivora by Edwin John Butler in 1917.
Phomopsis cane and leaf spot occurs wherever grapes are grown. Phomopsis cane and leaf spot is more severe in grape-growing regions characterized by a humid temperate climate through the growing season. Crop losses up to 30% have been reported to be caused by Phomopsis cane and leaf spot.
This is a glossary of some of the terms used in phytopathology.
Fusarium culmorum is a fungal plant pathogen and the causal agent of seedling blight, foot rot, ear blight, stalk rot, common root rot and other diseases of cereals, grasses, and a wide variety of monocots and dicots. In coastal dunegrass, F. culmorum is a nonpathogenic symbiont conferring both salt and drought tolerance to the plant.
Ceratocystis fimbriata is a fungus and a plant pathogen, attacking such diverse plants as the sweet potato and the tapping panels of the Para rubber tree. It is a diverse species that attacks a wide variety of annual and perennial plants. There are several host-specialized strains, some of which, such as Ceratocystis platani that attacks plane trees, are now described as distinct species.
Phytophthora nicotianae or black shank is an oomycete belonging to the order Peronosporales and family Peronosporaceae.
Gibberella zeae, also known by the name of its anamorph Fusarium graminearum, is a fungal plant pathogen which causes fusarium head blight (FHB), a devastating disease on wheat and barley. The pathogen is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year. Infection causes shifts in the amino acid composition of wheat, resulting in shriveled kernels and contaminating the remaining grain with mycotoxins, mainly deoxynivalenol (DON), which inhibits protein biosynthesis; and zearalenone, an estrogenic mycotoxin. These toxins cause vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in livestock, and are harmful to humans through contaminated food. Despite great efforts to find resistance genes against F. graminearum, no completely resistant variety is currently available. Research on the biology of F. graminearum is directed towards gaining insight into more details about the infection process and reveal weak spots in the life cycle of this pathogen to develop fungicides that can protect wheat from scab infection.
Crown rot of wheat is caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium pseudograminearum. F. pseudograminearum is a member of the fungal phylum Ascomycota and is also known as Gibberella coronicola (teleomorph). It is a monoecious fungus, meaning it does not require another host other than wheat to complete its life cycle. Although F. pseudograminearum can produce both anamorphic and teleomorphic states, the teleomorph is usually not present for crown rot of wheat. This Fusarium species has, until recently, been considered to be the same as the species known as Fusarium graminearum due to many similar characteristics. One of the only differences between the two species is that F. pseudograminearum lacks its sexual stage on the wheat host.
Phytophthora megakarya is an oomycete plant pathogen that causes black pod disease in cocoa trees in west and central Africa. This pathogen can cause detrimental loss of yield in the economically important cocoa industry, worth approximately $70 billion annually. It can damage any part of the tree, causing total yield losses which can easily reach 20-25%. A mixture of chemical and cultural controls, as well as choosing resistant plant varieties, are often necessary to control this pathogen.
Magnaporthe salvinii is a fungus known to attack a variety of grass and rice species, including Oryza sativa and Zizania aquatica. Symptoms of fungal infection in plants include small, black, lesions on the leaves that develop into more widespread leaf rot, which then spreads to the stem and causes breakage. As part of its life cycle, the fungus produces sclerotia that persist in dead plant tissue and the soil. Management of the fungus may be effected by tilling the soil, reducing its nitrogen content, or by open field burning, all of which reduce the number of sclerotia, or by the application of a fungicide.
Glomerella cingulata is a fungal plant pathogen, being the name of the sexual stage (teleomorph) while the more commonly referred to asexual stage (anamorph) is called Colletotrichum gloeosporioides. For most of this article the pathogen will be referred to as C. gloeosporioides. This pathogen is a significant problem worldwide, causing anthracnose and fruit rotting diseases on hundreds of economically important hosts.
Rhizopus soft rot is a disease of the sweet potato. It is one of the most common to affect the sweet potato, happening during packing and shipping. The disease causes a watery soft rot of the internal portion of the storage root. Strategies to manage the disease include the development of resistant varieties, curing through the use of heat and humidity, and application of decay control products.
Pineapple black rot, also known as butt rot, base rot, or white blister, is a disease caused by Ceratocystis paradoxa (teleomorph). C. paradoxa also causes disease in a variety of other tropical plants such as banana, coconut, and sugarcane making it a somewhat dangerous pathogen. Pineapple black rot is the most common and well-known post-harvest disease of the pineapple fruit and is responsible for serious losses in the fresh pineapple fruit world industry. The pathogen is a polyphagous wound parasite and gains entry into the fruit via wounds sustained during and after harvest. The disease only shows up in fresh fruit because the time from harvest to processing it too short for infection occur. Infection can also occur out in the field, but it is not nearly as common as post-harvest infection.
Fusarium dry rot is one of the most common potato diseases. It is caused by fungi in the genus Fusarium. This fungi causes a variety of colored rots in potatoes. This pathogen, while having both a sexual and asexual form, stays in an asexual cycle due to the way it spreads. Preferring warmer climates, it is not uncommon to find this pathogen in the northern United States where it has been reported to affect yield as much as 60%.
Gummy stem blight is a cucurbit-rot disease caused by the fungal plant pathogen Didymella bryoniae. Gummy stem blight can affect a host at any stage of growth in its development and affects all parts of the host including leaves, stems and fruits. Symptoms generally consist of circular dark tan lesions that blight the leaf, water soaked leaves, stem cankers, and gummy brown ooze that exudes from cankers, giving it the name gummy stem blight. Gummy stem blight reduces yields of edible cucurbits by devastating the vines and leaves and rotting the fruits. There are various methods to control gummy stem blight, including use of treated seed, crop rotation, using preventative fungicides, eradication of diseased material, and deep plowing previous debris.
Bitter rot of apple is a fungal disease of apple fruit that is caused by several species in the Colletotrichum acutatum and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides species complexes. It is identified by sunken circular lesions with conical intrusions into the apple flesh that appear V-shaped when the apple is cut in half through the center of the lesion. It is one of the most devastating diseases of apple fruit in regions with warm wet weather.
