Epidemiological aspects of mango malformation disease caused by Fusarium mangiferae and source of infection in seedlings cultivated in orchards in Egypt

Abstract

Mango malformation, caused by the fungus Fusarium mangiferae, is one of the major diseases of this crop occurring worldwide. This study was conducted to investigate aspects of the epidemiology, survival and spread of the pathogen in general and specifically in seedlings, the majority of which are cultivated in infected orchards in Egypt. Survival of conidia of a representative isolate (506/2) declined very rapidly in soil under summer conditions (1·6 weeks for 50% population decline), but significantly less in controlled and winter conditions (17·9 and 15·0 weeks, respectively, for 50% population decline). Likewise, inoculum survival in naturally infected panicles on the soil surface declined faster than in those buried at 30‐cm depths. Natural infections were evaluated on fruits and seeds in a heavily infected and a healthy orchard. In infected trees, the skins of all sampled fruits within a 2‐m radius of infected panicles were infected, but the pathogen was not detected in the seeds, seed coats or flesh. The pathogen was not detected in any parts of fruits from a healthy orchard. Vegetatively malformed mango seedlings, growing under infected trees bearing infected panicles, were sampled in two locations in Egypt to determine whether infection in seedlings was systemic (evenly distributed within plant tissue) or whether the pathogen originated from malformed panicles. According to PCR‐specific primer amplification, the pathogen was detected in 97% of seedling apical meristems, declining gradually to 5% colonization in roots. It was concluded that inoculum of the pathogen originates from infected panicles and affects seedlings from the meristem, with infections descending to lower stem sections and roots. Minor infections of roots may occur from inoculum originating from infected panicles, but the pathogen is not seedborne.