Characterisation of Botrytis species associated with neck rot of onion in Australia

Abstract

Neck rot of onion has commonly been attributed to two fungal pathogens, Botrytis aclada (syn. B. allii) and B. byssoidea. However, in other countries, a recently developed PCR technique using sequence characterised amplified region (SCAR) primers (BA2f/BA1r) followed by ApoI digestion of the amplification product, has shown the presence of two groups within B. aclada, B. aclada AI and B. aclada AII syn. B. allii. This method was used to characterise Botrytis spp. of the B. aclada/B. allii complex associated with onion seed and bulbs in Australia. A total of 24 Botrytis isolates, including two from seed and ten from bulbs (Tasmania), five from seed (South Australia), and one from seed and six from a culture collection originally isolated from five bulbs and one stipe (New South Wales), were characterised. Of the 24 isolates, one was identified as B. cinerea, one as B. aclada AI, and 22 as B. aclada All syn. B. allii.