Small Fruits Research Articles

Effectiveness of Steinernema rarum PAM 25 (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae) Against Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae).

Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura 1931) represents one of the main pests of small fruits. The use of biological agents is very promising for insect control. In the present study, the nematode Steinernema rarum PAM 25 was evaluated for the control of D. suzukii pupae, this species has not been evaluated previously. First, we evaluated the pathogenicity of S. rarum PAM 25 at the concentration of 1,000 infective juveniles (IJs) inoculated into D. suzukii pupae. In the second bioassay, we evaluated the influence of 1,500; 2,000; 2,500; 3,000; 4,000 IJs/ml nematode concentration and temperature on D. suzukii mortality. In the third bioassay, we evaluated the influence of the isolate S. rarum PAM 25 on D. suzukii adult lifespan following pupal infection, using the concentrations with the highest mortality rate of pupae at each temperature as determined in the second experiment. The S. rarum PAM 25 isolate is pathogenic to D. suzukii. The most effective temperature for S. rarum PAM 25 activity was 14°C at a concentration of 4,000 IJs/ml. Adults infected with S. rarum PAM 25 showed a significant reduction in longevity. The results confirmed the potential of S. rarum PAM 25 for the control of D. suzukii.

Comparative Insecticide Application Techniques (Micro-Sprinkler) Against Drosophila suzukii Matsumura (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in Highbush Blueberry.

Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura), spotted-wing drosophila, is a major pest in small fruit crops including highbush blueberry. Controlling D. suzukii is challenging and chemical control is the main method to manage D. suzukii populations. Growers have expressed interest in using micro-sprinklers as an alternative method to apply insecticides. The current study aimed to evaluate if insecticide applications using micro-sprinklers can be used as an alternative method to protect the fruit from D. suzukii egg-laying. Modeling was used as an additional tool to parameterize the relative insecticide efficacy on oviposition. Field measurements of different treatments were conducted over periods of eleven days on commercial-standard highbush blueberry. Cyantraniliprole and spinetoram were applied using both a micro-sprinkler and a backpack sprayer. Treatments of Chromobacterium subtsugae and zeta-cypermethrin were only applied using a backpack sprayer. Both cyantraniliprole and spinetoram treatments resulted in moderate suppression of D. suzukii egg-laying. No statistical significance was found between micro-sprinkler and backpack sprayer applications for these two insecticides. Zeta-cypermethrin treatments using a backpack sprayer resulted in the most significant suppression of D. suzukii egg-laying over eleven days, while C. subtsugae was less effective at preventing D. suzukii egg-laying. Modeling simulations estimate the impact of the control methods on D. suzukii populations dynamics and simulation outputs indicated that backpack sprayers reduced D. suzukii populations at more pronounced levels compared to micro-sprinkler applications. The present study indicates that there is an underlying value of micro-sprinkler systems as an alternative and rapid spray application technique to help suppress D. suzukii pest populations during high-pressure periods in highbush blueberry production.

Chemical Constituents of Functional Food Amomum villosum to Combat Human Diseases

Background: Amomum villosum is an important medicinal and edible plant owing to its valuable compositions of volatile and non-volatile compounds. Objective : The study was conducted to reveal the chemical constituents and medicinal values of A. villosum against various diseases. Methods : A critical and comprehensive data mining from 2004 to 2021 was performed based on CNKI, PubMed, and Google. Results: 120 Compounds have been reported collectively in seeds, peels, and rhizomes of A. villosum, 10 compounds were common however the content of bornyl acetate was maximum in seeds and peels. Similarly, Amomi fructus of China and Vietnam showed 59 different types of volatile compounds while 13 were common, the round large black fruits (1.56% bornyl acetate and 4.05% volatile oil) and long small red fruits type (1.64% bornyl acetate and 3.04% volatile oil) from China showed good quality and high medicinal values. In addition, Amomi fructus manifested 30-40 kinds of nonvolatile compounds, i.e., phenolic, polysaccharides, saponins, flavonoid, vanillic acid, catechin, epicatechin, polydatin, isoquercitrin, quercitrin, glycosides, inorganic and organic acids. Conclusion: A. villosum is widely used as anti-inflammatory, gastrointestinal protection, antiobesity, anticancer, antioxidant, analgesic, bacteriostasis, antidiabetic and anti-COVID-19, etc. So, it is manifested that the fruit, flowers, roots, stems, and leaves of A. villosum can be used as a medicine, especially fruit (Amomi fructus=Sharen), as the best functional food for the COVID-19 treatment and gastrointestinal protection as well as prevention of other diseases.

Functional roles of frugivores and plants shape hyper‐diverse mutualistic interactions under two antagonistic conservation scenarios

AbstractDisentangling the structure of plant–animal mutualisms shed light on how species are organized, and allow us to infer about resilience, specificity, and ultimately the consequences of the loss of functions to the ecosystem. Here we gathered fruit–frugivore interactions for all the major vertebrate taxa interacting with plants in two conservation states in the Brazilian Atlantic forest: a small patch and a continuous forest. Using a network approach, we identified individual roles played by vertebrates and plants, as well as the most relevant functional traits determining the network structure. The most important vertebrates in the continuous forest were the frugivorous characterized by the ability to swallow fruits containing small to large seeds, but they also were the first to be vanished from the small patch decades ago. Animal gape/gullet size, but not body mass, together with the greatest degrees of frugivory contributed to structure the conserved community. In the forest patch, where specialization degrees (in terms of number of interactions performed) were lost, small generalist birds and the only still living primate, along with small lipid‐rich fruits, were central in maintaining community structure. This study brings insights on the potential of conserved forests to hold important species‐rich interactions, at the same time that small patches count on small birds and small fruits with increased energetic rewards to maintain structuring under human degradation threats. Our results reemphasize the importance of preserving large continuous forest remnants to support important mutualistic interactions subjected to functional traits already lost in small degraded patches.Abstract in Portuguese is available with online material.

Morphotype Classification Criteria and Influence of Sociocultural Factors on Perceived Shea Tree (Vitellaria paradoxa C.F. Gaertn) Natural Variation across Parklands in Benin.

Trait diversity is crucial in undertaking the domestication of useful species such as Vitellaria paradoxa which makes a significant contribution to the rural household economy in Africa. This study aims to document the criteria farmers use to distinguish shea trees; how they vary according to age, education level and sociolinguistic group; and their perception of trees’ abundance and production. We surveyed 405 respondents across shea parklands in Benin using a semi-structured questionnaire. We used the Kruskal-Wallis test to evaluate the influence of sociodemographic attributes on relative criteria citation frequency and principal components analysis to characterize farmers’ perception on morphotypes’ abundance, fruits, and butter yields. The five most cited criteria were fruit size (55.5%), tree fertility (15.40%), bark colour (10.51%), timing of production (5.38%), and pulp taste (3.42%). The citation frequency of criteria varied significantly depending on the sociodemographic factors considered. Trees having small fruit (‘Yanki’) were reported to be widespread and high fruit/nuts and butter producers. Farmers perceived five important traits with variable importance depending on the sociocultural factors studied. This finding is a key step toward the development of a shea improvement program that could focus on the morphotype Yanki reported to potentially be a high fruit and butter producer.

Application of chitosan on physalis

Cultivation of small fruits such as blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, and physalis is rapidly growing in Brazil, mainly due to small producers who seek income diversification. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of foliar application of different doses of chitosan on the physicochemical properties of Physalis peruviana L. Two experiments were conducted: i) field (FE); and ii) greenhouse (GE). Four doses of chitosan (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 L 100L-1) and a control were used as treatments. We evaluated fruit diameter (FD), fruit length (FL), calyx length (CL), and calyx diameter (CD) - mm; fruit mass - g; soluble solids content (SS) - °Brix; titratable acidity (TA) - % of citric acid; SS/TA ratio; and fruit firmness - N. Foliar application of chitosan to field-grown physalis plants significantly increased fruit mass, length, and diameter, as well as fruit SS and TA content. However, in a protected environment, the application of chitosan had less effect on the properties evaluated. Fruit firmness was not affected by chitosan application. Negative correlations (P<0.001) between fruit mass and firmness (r=-0.57) and SS/TA ratio (r=-0.61) were observed. SS/TA ratio was also negatively correlated with TA (r=-0.82), FL(r=-0.61), and FD (r=-0.68). High and significant correlations were observed between fruit mass and TA, FL, and FD. Foliar application of chitosan has a positive effect on both agronomic and chemical properties and can be an excellent alternative natural fertilizer for physalis plants when applied in doses up to 0.2 L 100 L-1.

Heat Stress Leads to Poor Fruiting Mainly Due to Inferior Pollen Viability and Reduces Shoot Photosystem II Efficiency in “Da Hong” Pitaya

High summer temperatures (day/night: 40 °C/30 °C) are known to cause poor fruiting, reduced fruit/seed weight, and delayed fruit development in the “Da Hong” red-fleshed pitaya (Hylocereus polyrhizus); however, the mechanisms of these effects are unknown. This study examined how high temperature (HT, 40 °C/30 °C) affects stamen and pistil fertility through pollination combinations and fruit set in “Da Hong” pitaya and evaluated photosystem II (PSII) efficiency in yellowed shoots (cladodes). The in-vitro pollen germination rate was significantly higher at optimal temperature (OT, 30 °C/20 °C) than at HT, which was also associated with a reduced flower length, poor fruit set, small fruit size, and low number of seeds after self-pollination. Meanwhile, fruit set and fruit development were remarkably improved by using the pollens taken from plants grown at OT and moderate temperature (MH, 35 °C/25 °C) after mutual cross pollination, indicating that the reduction in seed number caused by incomplete fertilization due to inferior pollen viability was the main cause of poor fruiting under HT rather than pistil or photoinhibition, although HT treatment was linked to reductions of PSII efficiency at both the adaxial and abaxial ends of shoots. The results suggested that pollen viability was most affected under HT stress; thus, yielding remarkably reduced fruiting.

First complete quali-quantitative carotenoids characterization of Aiphanes aculeata, Quararibea cordata and Garcinia intermedia fruits

Several tropical fruits are important sources of bioactive molecules. The carotenoid composition of three fruits, Corozo, Sastra and Yellow sapote, from the area of Panama, was investigated in order to provide for the first time the complete quali-quantitative carotenoid profile. The carotenoid content in Yellow sapote was related to the fruit size, being higher in smaller fruits. Zeaxanthin was one of the main carotenoids in all fruits, and very high amounts of β-cryptoxanthin and β-carotene were determined in Sastra and Corozo (respectively, 70.8 μg/g and 32.2 μg/g in Sastra and 181.9 μg/g and 74.7 μg/g in Corozo); moreover, Corozo showed also a very high amount of lycopene (45.2 μg/g). Considering the here determined high carotenoids content and the fact that the investigated fruits are little commercialized and found in areas where vitamin A deficiency is still widespread, their production and use as source of bioactives should be much improved.

Expanding Paleoindian Diet Breadth: Paleoethnobotany of Connley Cave 5, Oregon, USA

Paleoethnobotanical perspectives are essential for understanding past lifeways yet continue to be underrepresented in Paleoindian research. We present new archaeobotanical and radiocarbon data from combustion features within stratified cultural components at Connley Caves, Oregon, that reaffirm the inclusion of plants in the diet of Paleoindian groups. Botanical remains from three features in Connley Cave 5 show that people foraged for diverse dryland taxa and a narrow range of wetland plants during the summer and fall months. These data add new taxa to the known Pleistocene food economy and support the idea that groups equipped with Western Stemmed Tradition toolkits had broad, flexible diets. When viewed continentally, this work contributes to a growing body of research indicating that regionally adapted subsistence strategies were in place by at least the Younger Dryas and that some foragers in the Far West may have incorporated a wider range of plants including small seeds, leafy greens, fruits, cacti, and geophytes into their diet earlier than did Paleoindian groups elsewhere in North America. The increasing appearance of diverse and seemingly low-ranked resources in the emerging Paleoindian plant-food economy suggests the need to explore a variety of nutritional variables to explain certain aspects of early foraging behavior.

Encapsulation of thyme essential oil using electrospun zein fiber for strawberry preservation

BackgroundStrawberry is a nutrient-rich and important small fruit because of its high content of beneficial phytochemicals and several vitamins like vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin B6. However, strawberry is highly perishable due to its susceptibility to mechanical damage, microbiological decay, and softening in texture. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in using various essential oils as natural food preservatives. Although, they have limited stability to exposure to high temperatures, light and oxygen, which could eventually affect sensory quality attributes. The electrospinning method is a simple and well-organized process that has been used to encapsulate essential oils. In this study, the effect of thyme essential oil (TEO) encapsulated into zein electrospun fiber film was assessed on extending the shelf life and preserving the quality of strawberry fruit during storage.FindingsResults indicated that TEO presented potent antibacterial activity against Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli and Aspergillus fumigatus. The scanning electron microscopy images of zein fiber had a linear shape, absence of beads, and smooth surface. The encapsulation efficiency (EE) of TEO in the zein fiber was about 75.23%. Encapsulated TEO released at a slower rate than free TEO. The zein/TEO fibers (zein fiber film loaded with TEO) significantly (p ˂ 0.05) decreased weight loss and maintained the anthocyanin content, firmness and color of the strawberries during storage. After 15 days of storage, weight loss reduced about 15% and firmness was higher about 20% in packed fruit with zein/TEO fibers compared to control.ConclusionsInterestingly, after 15 days of cold storage, the strawberries firmness, appearance, and sensory evaluation, which are important quality factors from both postharvest and consumers’ viewpoint, in zein/TEO fiber treatment were acceptable and had higher scores compared to the control. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated the benefits of incorporating TEO into zein films, which could play a significant role in the active packaging and preservation of strawberry fruits.Graphical

CRISPR/Cas9-targeted mutagenesis of SlCMT4 causes changes in plant architecture and reproductive organs in tomato.

DNA methylation participates widely in the regulation of gene expression in plants. To date, the regulation and function of DNA methylation is still unknown in tomato plants. Here, we generated SlCMT4 mutants using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system. We observed severe developmental defects in CRISPR-Cas9-mediated SlCMT4 mutants, including small and thick leaves, increased lateral buds, defective stamens and pistils, small fruit size with reduced setting rate, and defective seed development. The alterations at hormonal levels (IAA, tZR, strigol) were consistent with the multibranching phenotype in SlCMT4 mutant plants. CRISPR-Cas9-mediated knockout of SlCMT4 induced the expression of two pollen-specific genes (PMEI and PRALF) that suppressed the development of pollen wall and pollen tube elongation, which is responsible for irregular and defective pollen. The small-sized fruit phenotype is probably associated with upregulated expression of the IMA gene and reduced seeds in the mutant lines. Furthermore, we performed whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) of fruits and found that SlCMT4 knockout reduced genome-wide cytosine methylation. A reduction of methylation was also observed in a 2-kp region of the IMA and LOXB promoters in the SlCMT4-mutant fruits, indicating that the hypermethylation status of the CHH context is critical for the inhibition of IMA and LOXB promoter activity. Our results show that SlCMT4 is required for normal development of tomato vegetative and reproductive organs. This study illuminates the function of SlCMT4 and sheds light on the molecular regulatory mechanism of tomato plant architecture and fruit development and ripening.

BFP Net: Balanced Feature Pyramid Network for Small Apple Detection in Complex Orchard Environment.

Despite of significant achievements made in the detection of target fruits, small fruit detection remains a great challenge, especially for immature small green fruits with a few pixels. The closeness of color between the fruit skin and the background greatly increases the difficulty of locating small target fruits in the natural orchard environment. In this paper, we propose a balanced feature pyramid network (BFP Net) for small apple detection. This network can balance information mapped to small apples from two perspectives: multiple-scale fruits on the different layers of FPN and a characteristic of a new extended feature from the output of ResNet50 conv1. Specifically, we design a weight-like feature fusion architecture on the lateral connection and top-down structure to alleviate the small-scale information imbalance on the different layers of FPN. Moreover, a new extended layer from ResNet50 conv1 is embedded into the lowest layer of standard FPN, and a decoupled-aggregated module is devised on this new extended layer of FPN to complement spatial location information and relieve the problem of locating small apple. In addition, a feature Kullback-Leibler distillation loss is introduced to transfer favorable knowledge from the teacher model to the student model. Experimental results show that APS of our method reaches 47.0%, 42.2%, and 35.6% on the benchmark of the GreenApple, MinneApple, and Pascal VOC, respectively. Overall, our method is not only slightly better than some state-of-the-art methods but also has a good generalization performance.

Ефективність державної фінансової підтримки галузі садівництва України та напрями її вдосконалення

The dynamics of increasing the productivity of fruit and berry plantations and improving the quality of horticultural products over the last decade is analyzed. The necessity of conducting a study in the field of state financial support for horticulture in Ukraine. The principles of its provision to industry entities assessed. The impact of such support on the sustainable growth of the volume and profitability of horticultural production is shown. On the basis of analytical researches the estimation of efficiency of use of tools of the state support of agricultural production in the field of horticulture of Ukraine is carried out, and the directions of their improvement are formulated. Data on state financial support of economic entities that establish young perennial orchards, store, and process their own fruits and small fruits, as well as data on the production of these products are presented. The dynamics of growth with state support of production in the field of horticulture from 2000 to 2013 and in its absence, the decline in the establishment of new perennial plantations, fruit and berry production and the number of seedling farm properties and their production of homestead material from 2013 to 2017 as well as the growth of these indicators for the restoration of such support from 2017 to 2021. The amounts of state support and the number of sectoral entities that used it in the period 2017-2021 are presented. The positive dynamics of import substitution growth of apples in Ukraine over the last decade as a result of financial support for the construction of refrigerators by economic entities for storage of domestic products is shown. The problematic issues of the horticultural sector that need to be addressed at the legislative level have been identified and specific proposals have been made for the next amendments to the legislative acts. The conclusions of this work were presented to the working group of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy on the development of horticulture for discussion and further use in developing proposals for further amendments to the legislation governing state support for the industry.

Halyomorpha halys Stål, (Hemiptera:Pentatomidae) feeding effects on some agriculturalfruits in Georgia

Feeding effects of the invasive, polyphagous brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera:Pentatomidae), on some agricultural fruits (hazelnut, blueberry, mandarin, lemon) were investigated in Guria and Samegrelo regions of Georgia in 2019 and 2020. The damage to hazelnut kernels was evaluated when H. halys adults were allowed to feed on kernels in different stages of development. Furthermore, BMSB adults were allowed to feed on almost ripened fruits of blueberry, on small mandarin fruits which were not yet well developed, and on ripened fruits of mandarin. The evaluation of damage on lemon was recorded after allowing adult BMSB on small, not yet developed fruits and on almost developed fruits. It was shown that hazelnuts are susceptible to damage caused by feeding of BMSB throughout the entire period of kernel development (100% of kernels were damaged and did not develop at all). Furthermore, BMSB damages blueberry severely (100% damage) when the fruits are almost ripened. Damage to mandarin fruits in early development stages was over 90%, and 100% of ripened mandarin fruits dropped to the ground. We did not find any damage when BMSB was allowed to feed on Lemon throughout the development of the fruits.

SE-COTR: A Novel Fruit Segmentation Model for Green Apples Application in Complex Orchard.

Because of the unstructured characteristics of natural orchards, the efficient detection and segmentation applications of green fruits remain an essential challenge for intelligent agriculture. Therefore, an innovative fruit segmentation method based on deep learning, termed SE-COTR (segmentation based on coordinate transformer), is proposed to achieve accurate and real-time segmentation of green apples. The lightweight network MobileNetV2 is used as the backbone, combined with the constructed coordinate attention-based coordinate transformer module to enhance the focus on effective features. In addition, joint pyramid upsampling module is optimized for integrating multiscale features, making the model suitable for the detection and segmentation of target fruits with different sizes. Finally, in combination with the outputs of the function heads, the dynamic convolution operation is applied to predict the instance mask. In complex orchard environment with variable conditions, SE-COTR achieves a mean average precision of 61.6% with low complexity for green apple fruit segmentation at severe occlusion and different fruit scales. Especially, the segmentation accuracy for small target fruits reaches 43.3%, which is obviously better than other advanced segmentation models and realizes good recognition results. The proposed method effectively solves the problem of low accuracy and overly complex fruit segmentation models with the same color as the background and can be built in portable mobile devices to undertake accurate and efficient agricultural works in complex orchard.

Investigating the Impact of Huanglongbing in Citrus in Southern Lao PDR

Citrus has been promoted in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) as a poverty reduction strategy for at least two decades. However, citrus trees have been in widespread decline for no less than ten years. Since 2010, the authors have observed symptoms on citrus trees consistent with the bacterial disease huanglongbing (HLB). These symptoms included asymmetric leaf mottle, small lopsided fruit, poor fruit production and tree decline. The authors then initiated a long-term study on the occurrence of HLB in southern Lao PDR. Samples of leaf mid-ribs were collected from citrus trees in orchards, nurseries, and backyards across four provinces: Champasak, Sekong, Salavan, and Savannakhet. The presence of ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’, the putative causal agent of the Asiatic form of HLB, was confirmed in 59 of 109 samples collected in all four provinces. The Asian citrus psyllid, the vector of ‘Ca. L. asiaticus’, was also observed on citrus trees and tested positive for the pathogen. The implications of these findings for citrus production in Lao PDR are discussed. 

Real-Time Monitoring Method of Strawberry Fruit Growth State Based on YOLO Improved Model

A key challenge for automated orchard management robots is the rapid and accurate identification of crop growth and maturity conditions for subsequent operations, such as automatic pollination, fertilization, and picking. In particular, strawberries have a short ripening period and the fruits are heavily overlapped and shaded by each other, which is time-consuming and inefficient under traditional detection methods. Therefore, we designed and developed a strawberry growth detection algorithm, SDNet (Strawberry Detect Net). The algorithm is based on the YOLOX model and replaces the original CSP block in the backbone network with a self-designed feature extraction module C3HB block to improve the spatial interaction capability and monitoring accuracy of the detection algorithm; Then, the normalized attention module (NAM) is embedded in the neck to improve the detection accuracy and attention weight of small target fruits; and we use the latest SIOU objective loss function to improve the prediction accuracy of the detection model, which finally achieves the monitoring of strawberry fruits under five growth states. The experimental results show that the mAP, precision, and recall of SDNet are 94.26%, 93.15%, and 90.72%, respectively, and the monitoring speed is 30.5 ms. It is 4.08%, 3.64 and 2.04% higher than the precision, accuracy, and recall of YOLOX, respectively, and there is no significant change in the model size. The research results can effectively solve the problem of low accuracy of strawberry fruit growth state monitoring under complex environments, and provide important technical reference for realizing unmanned farm and precision agriculture.

Effects of Soil Texture, Irrigation Intervals, and Cultivar on some Nut Qualities and Different Types of Fruit Blankness in Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.)

Fruit blankness is an important problem of pistachio cultivation, which results from many reasons. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of soil texture, irrigation interval, and cultivar on nut quality and blankness of pistachio. The treatments included soil texture (light and heavy), irrigation intervals (24 and 48 days), cultivar (Kaleghoochi and Ahmadaghaei), and their interactions were studied. Measured traits were flower and small fruit abscission rate, nut weight, blank and semi-blank fruit percentage, splitting percentage, and ounce. Symptoms of fruit blankness were determined by anatomical study of blank fruits. Results showed that a 48-day irrigation interval produced nuts with higher quality, lower blankness percentage, higher weight and size, and higher number of split ones than the other treatments. It is assumed that plants produce more fruits by sufficient water supply, thus the competition for photosynthetic products results in smaller, lower-weight seeds. Light soil was more suitable regarding nut qualities, but flower and small fruit abscission rates were higher in light soil probably because of temperature fluctuations in this soil. Anatomical studies showed that blankness could result from a lack of fertilization (parthenocarpy) or embryo abortion (stenospermocarpy). Parthenocarpy mostly occurred in the more sensitive cultivar, Kaleghoochi, while the more tolerant cultivar, Ahmadaghaei, mostly had stenospermocarpic blank fruits. It was also determined that embryo abortion could occur at different stages of development.

First Report of Colletotrichum chrysophilum Causing Anthracnose on Blueberry in Brazil.

Highbush (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) and rabbiteye (V. ashei R.) blueberry are the most important export small fruit crops in southern Brazil. Anthracnose has been considered one of the most destructive disease and exclusively associated with C. karstii in Brazil (Rios et al. 2014). In November 2019, severe anthracnose symptoms including leaf spots but particularly twig blights and fruit rots were observed on all blueberry plants (V. ashei) in one organic orchard in Santa Catarina state, Brazil (27º43'48.96"S, 49º0'57.79"W). Four isolates were obtained from necrotic lesions and monosporic cultures were grown on potato dextrose agar at 25°C and with a 12 h photoperiod under near ultra violet light. After 15 days, colonies showed upper surface color varying from grayish-white to pale-orange and the reverse side pale-orange. Conidia were hyaline, cylindrical with rounded ends, and their length and width ranged from 9.5 to 15.5 µm (x ̅=11.8) and 6.5 to 3.5 µm (x ̅=4.9), respectively. The isolates were identified by multilocus phylogenetic analyses using nucleotide sequences of actin (ACT), β-tubulin (TUB2), calmodulin (CAL), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate-dehydrogenase (GAPDH), glutamine synthetase (GS), internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and the intergenic spacer between DNA lyase and the mating-type locus MAT1-2-1 (ApMAT). Nucleotide sequences exhibited from 95 to 100% sequence identity to Colletotrichum chrysophilum ex-type (CMM4268) and were deposited in GenBank database (MW868219 to MW868222, MW868211 to MW868214, MW868215 to MW868218, MW868223 to MW868226, MW868202 to MW868205, MW793353 to MW793356, and MW868207 to MW868210). C. chrysophilum belongs to the C. gloeosporioides species complex and was previously described as C. ignotum in banana and other tropical fruits in Brazil (Vieira et al. 2017; Veloso et al. 2018). In addition, this species was recently reported on apple fruit in New York, USA (Khodadadi et al. 2020). To confirm pathogenicity, one-year-old blueberry plants were inoculated by spraying a suspension of 1×106 conidia/ml, incubated in a moist chamber in the dark for 48 h and then kept in the greenhouse. Plants sprayed with sterile distilled water served as control. Additionally, fruits were immersed for 2 min in a conidial suspension (1×106 conidia/ml) and incubated at 25°C and 12 h photoperiod for 20 days. Inoculated plants exhibited first symptoms in twigs at 10 days after inoculation (dai). Infected twigs showed initially dark brown spots that coalesced and became necrotic. On leaves, reddish-brown lesions with less than 2 mm appeared at low intensity at 15 dai. On fruits, sunken areas associated with an abundant orange mucilaginous mass of acervuli and conidia were seen at 7 dai. Symptoms on plants were identical to those observed under field conditions, and the pathogen was re-isolated from lesions fulfilling Koch's postulates. To the best knowledge, this is the first report of C. chrysophilum causing anthracnose on blueberries in Brazil. The identification of this species causing blueberry anthracnose is crucial to improve the disease control strategies and resistance breeding.

Comparison of Photosynthetic Characteristics and Reproductive Traits of Winter Squash (<i>Cucurbita maxima </i>L.) Between Cultivars

The production of winter squash used vertical trellising was popular in the greenhouse for easy to manage growth and fruiting. This study investigated the photosynthetic characteristics of six winter squash cultivars to explore the differences in crop production efficiency between cultivars by vertical trellising cultivation. Plant growth, photosynthetic characteristics and fruit quality of winter squash cultivars ‘Black lamp’, ‘Tastemaker’, ‘East elite’, ‘Julius’, ‘Sugar’ and ‘Lyric’ were surveyed. The photosynthetic rate (Pn) was measured on the 70^th day after planting. We selected the three leaves above the fruit in which to compare the Pn between cultivars, and surveyed all leaves on ‘Black lamp’ and ‘East elite’ in order to make a comparison between nodes. The Pn values of ‘Black lamp’, ‘East elite’, ‘Lyric’ and ‘Tastemaker’ were significantly higher, at 14.02, 13.06, 12.33 and 12.19 μmol CO₂/m²∙s, respectively. The Pn of the leaves on 5–8^th nodes decreased significantly, and the Pn of the 1^st–5^th nodes up to the fruit also decreased. With regards to reproductive traits, the first pistillate flowers of ‘East elite’ and ‘Black lamp’ bloomed on the 30^th day after planting, while the other cultivars bloomed on the 35–37^th day after planting. The six cultivars were classified according to the size of the fruit on the 48^th day after pollination: ‘Lyric’ and ‘Tastemaker’ were classified into the largest group, at 1203 and 1106 cm³, respectively; the second group contained ‘East elite’ and ‘Julius’, at 870 and 687 cm³; while ‘Sugar’ and ‘Black lamp’ were in the smallest group, at 353 and 217 cm³, respectively. The soluble sugar and total soluble solid (TSS) contents of ‘East elite’ were significantly elevated, their values being 630.6 g/kg and 13.3%, respectively. The starch content of ‘Lyric’ was the highest at 193.7 g/kg. "Black Light" was a fruit-number type, and the increase in fruit number could increase the yield/plant; "East elite" was a fruit-weight type, and the yield per plant was related to the weight of a single fruit. The influence of the unit leaf of “Black Lamp” on the fruit fresh weight was the lowest performance in the reproductive growth. In order to increase productivity of small fruit such as ‘Black lamp’ western pumpkin, the balance between the vegetative growth and the reproductive growth was necessary to be improved.