First Report of Fusarium Wilt of Gerbera Daisy Caused by Fusarium kyushuense in China

Abstract

Gerbera daisy, Gerbera jamesonii H. Bolus ex. Hooker, is an important flower grown globally. In September 2020, gerbera seedlings in a greenhouse farm in the region of Fujian, China, developed symptoms of severe wilting and stunting. The main stem exhibited reddish to light brown vascular discoloration. Approximately 30% of the 60,000 plants showed symptoms. To isolate the causal agent, necrotic tissue pieces (3×3 mm) from the symptomatic stem were surface-disinfected with 1% NaClO for 1 min and washed three times with sterile water. The disinfected pieces were dried and placed on potato dextrose agar (PDA) at 25°C in the darkness for 4 days inside a dark chamber. Reddish-white and floccose mycelia developed on PDA after 3 days incubation. Ten single-spored isolates were identified as Fusarium kyushuense based on morphological features (Aoki & O'Donnell, 1998). Hyaline and straight or slightly curved macroconodia were observed with 3 to 5 septate, 24.5 - 46.6 × 3.6 - 5.7 μm (n = 100). Microconidia were ellipsoidal to clavate, 0 to 1 septate, and 6.3 to 19.5 × 3.2 to 5.3 μm (n = 100). No chlamydospores were observed. In order to validate this result, partial RNA polymerase second largest subunit (RPB2) combined with translation elongation factor (EF-1α) gene regions were amplified and sequenced from three isolates with primers 5f2/11ar (Liu et al., 1999) and primers EF1/EF2 (Geiser et al. 2004), respectively. Fusarium MLST analysis showed that the RPB2 (Genbank accession No. MZ130468, No. MZ130469, No. MZ130470) matched 99.72% (MH582170) to F. kyushuense, and the EF-1α (MZ130471, MZ130472, MZ130473) matched 99.84% (MH582297) to F. kyushuense in the Fusarium MLST. Besides, a phylogenetic analysis was conducted using the neighbor-joining algorithm based on the RPB2 and EF-1α gene sequences. The isolates clustered with F. kyushuense. To assess pathogenicity, the three molecularly identified isolates were used. The isolates were grown on carboxylmethyl cellulose (CMC) medium (carboxymethyl-cellulose (Sigma C-4888) 15.0 gram, NH4NO3 1.0 gram, KH2PO4 monobasic 1.0 gram, MgSO4·7H2O 0.5 gram, yeast extract 1.0 gram, distilled water filled to 1.0 liter) for sporulation. The roots of 12 healthy 30-day-old gerbera plants were inoculated by treating them with 10 mL of conidia suspension (1×106 conidial/mL). A group of 12 seedlings of the same age was treated with sterile water to serve as the control. Plants were grown in a glasshouse at 23 °C, relative humidity >70%, and 16 h light per day. Typical symptoms of wilt and discoloration of the vascular system in roots and stems developed within 10 days. Uninoculated plants remained healthy. Isolates were consistently re-isolated from the symptomatic stem and the recovered isolates were identified as F. kyushuense by amplifing the EF-1α gene. The assays were conducted twice. F. kyushuense has been reported to cause wilt and rot of tobacco (Wang et al., 2013), maize ears (Wang et al., 2014) and rice (Zhao et al., 2007) in China. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of F. kyushuense causing stem and root wilt on G. jamesonii. The disease must be considered in existing management practices.