First Report of Colletotrichum dracaenophilum on Dracaena sanderiana in Bulgaria

Abstract

In the winter of 2007, severe damage was observed on numerous indoor potted plants of Dracaena sanderiana hort. Sander ex Mast. (“lucky bamboo”) in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, which were imported from a country of unknown origin. These plants were already in the retail distribution stream. Initially, the internodes of infected stems appeared pale green with yellowish lesions. An upward spreading necrosis led to a weakness of the stems with wilt and death of the plants occurring within 2 weeks. Eventually, entire stems were covered with numerous, black, globose-to-ellipsoid acervuli with sparse, black setae. The fungus was aseptically isolated from stem lesions on potato dextrose agar (PDA) on which it produced fast-growing, pale pink colonies. On the plant and in culture, the conidia were hyaline, broadly clavate to cylindrical, occasionally slightly curved, and measured 20 to 34 × 6.7 to 10.0 μm (average 28 × 8.5 μm). On the basis of the symptoms on the plant and morphological, cultural, and molecular characteristics, the fungus was identified as Colletotrichum dracaenophilum D.F. Farr & M.E. Palm (1). Pathogenicity of the fungus was confirmed by artificial inoculation of healthy plants of D. sanderiana (three replicates). Stems were inoculated by inserting small mycelial plugs from 7-day-old PDA cultures into wounds that were subsequently covered with Parafilm strips. After 2 weeks, pale green lesions started developing on all inoculated plants and the fungus was successfully reisolated. No symptoms were found around the pure agar control wounds. The specimen from Bulgaria was deposited in the U.S. National Fungus Collections (BPI 877337) with the derived culture deposited as CBS 121453. In addition, the internal transcribed spacer region of the nrDNA of this isolate was sequenced and deposited as GenBank Accession No. EU003533. To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. dracaenophilum on potted plants outside of China and is the first report of this species in Bulgaria. Reference: (1) D. F. Farr et al. Mycol. Res. 110:1395, 2006.

First report of Fusarium solani causing stem rot of Dracaena in Iran

“…Previously, A. niger and C. dracaenophilum as stem rot, have been reported from D. sanderiana in Iran and Bulgaria, respectively (Abbasi and Aliabadi 2008;Bobev et al 2008). The Dracaena genus has several species, such as D. marginata, D. braunii, and D. americana.…”

“…Among fungal pathogens on Dracaena plants, only stem rot caused by Aspergillus niger has been recorded in Iran (Abbasi and Aliabadi 2008). Also, Colletotrichum dracaenophilum as a causal agent of stem rot in D. sanderiana, has been reported from Bulgaria (Bobev et al 2008). So far, many Fusarium species including F. equiseti, F. oxysporum, F. proliferatum, F. phyllophitum, F. semitectum, F. solani, and F. subglutinans have been reported to occur on the genus Dracaena, mainly causing leaf spots (Choi et al 2008;Thongkantha et al 2008).…”

Colletotrichum dracaenophilum causes anthracnose on Dracaena braunii in Brazil

“…This fungus is known to cause anthracnose on Dracaena sp. in Bulgaria (Farr and Rossman 2015) and China (Farr et al 2006) and on D. braunii in Bulgaria (Bobev et al 2008) and in China (Liu et al 2014).…”

Isolation and Identification of the Fungus Colletotrichum cordylinicola Causing Anthracnose Disease on Cordyline fruticosa in Florida

“…The negative control consisted of a similar plug of sterile acidified PDA agar. The inoculated sites were then covered with parafilm strips (Bobev et al, 2008). Inoculated and control plants were kept in a greenhouse with a 12-h photoperiod at 25 to 30°C.…”