ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF PATHOGEN OF 'JIROU' PERSIMMON ANTHRACNOSE DISEASE FROM YISHUI, SHANDONG, CHINA

Anthracnose is one of the most serious diseases for persimmon, thus the isolation and identification of pathogen is very important for the diagnosis and control of the disease in the persimmon production practice. Isolates were recovered from anthracnose lesions on persimmon fruit and twigs of ‘Jirou’ persimmon (with the Chinese name ‘Cilang’) from the persimmon orchard in Gezhuang town, Yishui, Shandong, and single conidial isolates were obtained. The analysis of morphological characteristics showed that the isolates belong to members of the genus Colletotrichum. Then molecular identification was carried out by rDNA-ITS sequence analysis via PCR amplification with the universal primers of ITS6 and ITS4. The result showed that the isolates from persimmon leaves, fruits and twigs were in full accord, and the nucleotide sequence of ITS gene (GenBank accession No. JQ957543) shared 100% identity with that of anthracnose pathogens on ‘Wuheshi’ persimmon in Zhejiang (AY787483) and New Zealand isolate (GQ329690). The phylogenetic analysis based on ITS sequences showed that the isolate from ‘Jirou’ was located at the same branch of phylogenetic tree with the isolates of ‘Wuheshi’ persimmon in Zhejiang (AY787483, AY791890) and New Zealand isolates (GQ329687, GQ329688 and GQ329690), which indicated that the isolate from ‘Jirou’ belongs to the member of Colletotrichum horii.