Podosphaera pannosa causes powdery mildew and rusty spot on peach fruits from Korea

Abstract

The fungus, Podosphaera pannosa, was identified in 1991 as the cause of powdery mildew symptoms on peach (Prunus persica var. persica) fruit from Korea based on the morphological characteristics of the conidial state. Recently, however, in Serbia and France, the cause of ‘rusty spot’ found on peach fruit was identified as P. leucotricha, and the cause of ‘powdery mildew’ on nectarine (Prunus persica var. nucipersica) fruit was identified as P. pannosa. To confirm the identity of the Korean pathogen, we collected four samples of powdery mildew from Korean peach fruit: three with the ‘powdery mildew’ symptom and one with the ‘rusty spot’ symptom. Morphological examination of the four samples confirmed P. pannosa as the pathogen. Internal transcribed spacer sequences of rDNA were analyzed for molecular characterization. A phylogenetic tree showed that the Korean isolates were clustered into a clade containing P. pannosa from Rosa species, with high sequence similarities of more than 99%. Thus, we showed that the powdery mildew and rusty spot symptoms on peach fruits from Korea are associated with P. pannosa.