The role of Ustilaginoidea virens sclerotia in increasing incidence of rice false smut disease in the subtropical zone in China

Abstract

Rice false smut is heavily and increasingly occurring in subtropical zones in China in the past decades. The pathogen of the disease, Ustilaginoidea virens, can produce both chlamydospores and sclerotia, and the sclerotia seem to form frequently in temperate or high-altitude regions in China. Which of these structures play a dominant role in the pathogen’s life cycle in subtropical zones remains unclear. Here we found that Ustilaginoidea virens could produce a great number of sclerotia in subtropical zones and the maximal number of sclerotia could reach to 2.25 million per hectare. In the year with relatively low autumn temperatures, the disease severity and sclerotia numbers of U. virens increased significantly. Although there was a few sclerotia in subtropical zones capable of overwintering successfully, one individual sclerotium could produce large numbers of ascospores. In the rice-growing paddy field, the ascospores could be trapped in both temperate and subtropical zones in May–September, when rice was at the booting stage, the critical infection period of rice false smut. This suggested that the sclerotia of rice false smut in subtropical zone played an important role in the life cycle of Ustilaginoidea virens and acted as the primary inoculum. Experiments in the laboratory showed that mature sclerotia of rice false smut remained dormant for about 2–5 months, and that light was essential for fruiting body differentiation. As with ergot, the fruiting bodies of Ustilaginoidea virens secreted sticky droplets on the stromata that prevented the ascospores from dispersing into the air, implying that the transfer of ascospores of Ustilaginoidea virens to rice plants in paddy field needed an intermediary vector.