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Plant pathogens are key threats to agriculture and global food security, causing various crop diseases that lead to massive economic losses. Palm oil is a commodity export of economic importance in Southeast Asia, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia. However, the sustainability of oil palm plantations and production is threatened by basal stem rot (BSR), a devastating disease predominantly caused by the fungus Ganoderma boninense Pat. In Malaysia, infected trees have been reported in nearly 60% of plantation areas, and economic losses are estimated to reach up to ~USD500 million a year. This review covers the current knowledge of the mechanisms utilized by G. boninense during infection and the methods used in the disease management to reduce BSR, including cultural practices, chemical treatments and antagonistic microorganism manipulations. Newer developments arising from multi-omics technologies such as whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) are also reviewed. Future directions are proposed to increase the understanding of G. boninense invasion mechanisms against oil palm. It is hoped that this review can contribute towards an improved disease management and a sustainable oil palm production in this region.

Ganoderma boninense is a fungal pathogen that causes basal stem rot (BSR) disease in oil palm. Being a serious disease problem to the oil palm industry, monitoring and detecting the pathogen is of the utmost importance to reduce disease spread and facilitate effective management strategies. Because the traditional culture-based assay is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and required special skills in mycology, plant pathologists are turning to more accurate, sensitive, and fast methods such as molecular techniques. In this study, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays were developed to detect pathogenic Ganoderma species causing BSR disease in oil palm using a primer designed based on the ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region. The effectiveness of conventional and real-time PCR assays was analyzed compared to the traditional isolation-based assay. For artificially inoculated oil palm plantlets, consistent detection of G. boninense was observed. Real-time PCR assay has shown to be more sensitive and rapid in detecting G. boninense in field samples and could potentially serve as a validation tool to other detection techniques for the implementation of effective disease control measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]