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. 2024 Jan 27;24(1):38.
doi: 10.1186/s12866-023-03174-4.

Identification and pathogenicity of Fusarium spp. associated with tea wilt in Zhejiang Province, China

Zhaoyang Tang  1 , Jing Zhu  1 , Qiujin Song  2 , Paul Daly  3 , Liya Kong  1 , Luqian He  1 , Agen Li  4 , Jun Lou  1 , Zhanqi Wang  1 , Liqin Zhang  5 , Lijing Min  6
Affiliations

Identification and pathogenicity of Fusarium spp. associated with tea wilt in Zhejiang Province, China

Zhaoyang Tang et al. BMC Microbiol. .

Abstract

Background: Tea is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world, with significant economic and cultural value. However, tea production faces many challenges due to various biotic and abiotic stresses, among which fungal diseases are particularly devastating.

Results: To understand the identity and pathogenicity of isolates recovered from tea plants with symptoms of wilt, phylogenetic analyses and pathogenicity assays were conducted. Isolates were characterized to the species level by sequencing the ITS, tef-1α, tub2 and rpb2 sequences and morphology. Four Fusarium species were identified: Fusarium fujikuroi, Fusarium solani, Fusarium oxysporum, and Fusarium concentricum. The pathogenicity of the Fusarium isolates was evaluated on 1-year-old tea plants, whereby F. fujikuroi OS3 and OS4 strains were found to be the most virulent on tea.

Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of tea rot caused by F. fujikuroi in the world. This provides the foundation for the identification and control of wilt disease in tea plants.

Keywords: Fusarium; Fusarium fujikuroi; Pathogenicity; Tea wilt.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests. The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Symptoms of wilt diseases observed on tea trees in the plantation. (A-B) Wilt diseases caused death of the entire tea plant. (C-D) Wilt caused some branches to show wilt symptoms. (E) Root system browning and decay. (F) Infected plant of tea shown wilt. (G-H) Enlarged image of the roots and stems of the tea plant in F
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Morphological characters of Fusarium species. (A) Fungal colonies (reverse view on the left and surface view on the right) growing on PDA after 5 days of incubation period at 25℃. (B) Microconidia. (C) Fusarium fujikuroi OS3 isolate. (C1-C2) Conidiophores and conidiogenous cells. (C3) Microconidia and germinating microconidium. (C4) Sporodochia on mung bean culture medium. (C5) Macroconidia. (A) Bars = 1 cm; (B-C) Bars = 10 μm
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Evolutionary analysis by the maximum likelihood method. The percentage of trees in which the associated taxa clustered together is shown below the branches. The bootstrap consensus tree inferred from 1000 replicates is taken to represent the evolutionary history of the taxa analyzed. Evolutionary analyses were conducted in MEGA11. The tree of the Fusarium spp. analyses by ITS, tef-1α, tub2, and rpb2 sequence data. The tree is rooted to Trichoderma harzianum strain CBS 226.95
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Pathogenicity assays. Symptoms of seedlings inoculated with Fusarium strains at 13, 18 and 30 days. CK indicates the control, and e.g., a score of 0/9 means 0 died and 9 plants in total were inoculated with the isolate
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