First report of botrytis blight caused by Botrytis cinerea on Gaura lindheimeri in Italy.

摘要

In January 2008, five-month-old Gaura lindheimeri (cv. Whirling Butterflies) plants grown in plastic pots in the open field started showing symptoms of a previously unknown blight. Small, brown spots appeared on the basal portion of leaves first, eventually spreading to cover entire leaves. Severely infected leaves eventually became completely rotten and desiccated. Tissues were excised from diseased leaves, immersed in a solution containing 1% sodium hypochlorite for 10 seconds and then cultured on potato dextrose agar medium. Based on its cultural characters, the pathogen was identified as Botrytis cinerea. Upon conducting pathogenicity tests, inoculated plants developed foliar lesions while control plants remained healthy. B. cinerea was consistently reisolated from the lesions. This is thought to be the first report of the presence of B. cinerea on G. lindheimeri in Italy.