Journal of General Plant Pathology (2015) 81, 218-225

Tomoo Misawa and Masanobu Takeuchi (2015)
Species composition of Botrytis leaf blight pathogens of Chinese chives and their seasonal and annual changes in Hokkaido, Japan
Journal of General Plant Pathology 81 (3), 218-225
Abstract: Botrytis leaf blight is the most important disease of Chinese chives. We examined a total of 345 isolates from symptomatic plants sampled from 14 fields in Hokkaido once in 2010 (summer) and twice in 2011 and 2012 (summer and autumn). They were identified as Botrytis squamosa (BS: 285 isolates) and B. cinerea (BC: 60 isolates) based on conidial morphology. Morphological identification of 65 BS isolates and 23 BC isolates supported by PCR–RFLP analysis and specific PCR. BS isolates were much more frequently obtained than BC isolates in autumn, but in summer, both species were almost equally recovered. BS predominated in all the fields in the autumn of the 3 years although the ratio of BS to BC in summer varied, depending on the field and year. These results indicate that both species infect leaves in summer, then BS becomes dominant in autumn. Inoculation tests revealed that BS was more virulent than BC at 15 and 20 °C and that the level of virulence of both species was greatly reduced at 20 °C. These results may account for fluctuations in the occurrence of the pathogens.
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Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
surveys/sampling/distribution

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Botrytis cinerea		Japan
	Botrytis squamosa		Japan