Search

The feasibility of resuming the use of dodine for post-infection spraying in Uruguay was evaluated. For this purpose, the current status of sensitivity of Venturia inaequalis populations in commercial apple orchards was determined. V. inaequalis populations collected from six commercial orchards, with different histories of dodine use in the last 10 years, were assessed by measuring mycelial relative growth (RG) at a single assessment concentration (SAC) of 0.2 mg a.i. L−1 of dodine. The SAC was previously determined by fitting linear regressions between log10 EC50 and RG of a subset of isolates at seven increasing concentrations of dodine, from 0.05 to 5 mg a.i. L−1. In addition, the post-infection activity of dodine was evaluated in the field. For this, 2-year-old potted apple trees were exposed during pre-bloom stage to two natural rainfall events in an apple orchard with history of dodine use. Forty hours after the start of each rainfall, eight potted apple trees were hand sprayed with dodine at label concentration and eight were sprayed with water and used as controls. The in vitro assay indicates the presence of resistant isolates (RG > 90%) to dodine in all V. inaequalis populations assessed. Highly-resistant isolates (RG ≥ 95%) also were found in all populations, ranging from 3.4 to 28.6%, and showed statistical differences among orchards (P ≤ 0.10). In the field assay, dodine-sprays showed an incomplete control. Typical apple scab symptoms developed in dodine-treated (27.6% of the leaves) and control apple trees (60.6% of the leaves). These results show that dodine resistance is present in V. inaequalis populations of commercial apple orchards in Uruguay and confirms the occurrence of practical resistance in the field. Therefore, the resumption of dodine use should be cautious for apple scab management in Uruguay.

Rootstocks are the link between the soil and scion in grapevines, can provide tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses, and regulate yield and grape quality. The vascular system of grapevine rootstocks in nurseries is still an underexplored niche for research, despite its potential for hosting beneficial and pathogenic microorganisms. The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes in the composition of fungal communities in 110 Richter and 41 Berlandieri rootstocks at four stages of the grapevine propagation process. Taxonomic analysis revealed that the fungal community predominantly consisted of phylum Ascomycota in all stages of the propagation process. The alphadiversity of fungal communities differed among sampling times for both rootstocks, with richness and fungal diversity in the vascular system decreasing through the propagation process. The core microbiome was composed of the genera Cadophora, Cladosporium, Penicillium and Alternaria in both rootstocks, while the pathogenic genus Neofusicoccum was identified as a persistent taxon throughout the propagation process. FUNguild analysis showed that the relative abundance of plant pathogens associated with trunk diseases increased towards the last stage in nurseries. Fungal communities in the vascular system of grapevine rootstocks differed between the different stages of the propagation process in nurseries. Numerous genera associated with potential biocontrol activity and grapevine trunk diseases were identified. Understanding the large diversity of fungi in the rootstock vascular tissue and the interactions between fungal microbiota and grapevine will help to develop sustainable strategies for grapevine protection., This work has been partially supported by Ministerstvo Školství, Mládeže a Tělovýchovy (CZ.02.1.01./0.0/0.0/16_017/0002334) and the “José Castillejo” program (CAS 18/00065). D. Gramaje was supported by the Ramón y Cajal Program, Spanish Government (RYC-2017-23098). We thank M. Maldonado-González and M. Andrés-Sodupe for the technical support.

Peach (Prunus persica L.) is an economically important deciduous fruit crop in Uruguay. Anthracnose caused by species of the genus Colletotrichum is one of the major diseases in peach production, originating significant yield losses in United States (Hu et al. 2015), China (Du et al. 2017), Korea (Lee et al. 2018) and Brazil (Moreira et al. 2020). In February 2017, mature peach fruits cv. Pavia Canario with symptoms resembling anthracnose disease were collected from a commercial orchard located in Rincon del Colorado, Canelones, in the Southern region of Uruguay. Symptoms on peach fruit surface were characterized as circular, sunken, brown to dark-brown lesions ranging from 1 to 5 cm in diameter. Lesions were firm to touch with wrinkled concentric rings. All lesions progressed to the fruit core in a V-shaped pattern. The centers of the lesions were covered by orange conidial masses. Monosporic isolates obtained from the advancing margin of anthracnose lesions were grown on PDA at 25ºC and 12h photoperiod under fluorescent light. The representative isolates DzC1, DzC2 and DzC6 were morphologically and molecularly characterized. Upper surface of colonies varied from white or pale-gray to gray and on the reverse dark-gray with white to pale-gray margins. Conidia were cylindrical, with both ends predominantly rounded or one slightly acute, hyaline and aseptate. The length and width of conidia ranged from 9.5 to 18.9 µm (x ̅=14.1) and from 3.8 to 5.8 µm (x ̅=4.6), respectively. The ACT, βTUB2, GAPDH, APN2, APN2/MAT-IGS, and GAP2-IGS gene regions were amplified and sequenced with primers ACT-512F/ACT-783R (Carbone and Kohn, 1999), BT2Fd/BT4R (Woudenberg et al. 2009), GDF1/GDR1 (Guerber et al. 2003), CgDLR1/ColDLF3, CgDLF6/CgMAT1F2 (Rojas et al. 2010) and GAP1041/GAP-IGS2044 (Vieira et al. 2017) respectively and deposited in the GenBank database (MZ097888 to MZ097905). Multilocus phylogenetic analysis revealed that Uruguayan isolates clustered in a separate and well supported clade with sequences of the ex-type (isolate ICMP 18578) and other C. siamense strains (isolates Coll6, 1092, LF139 and CMM 4248). To confirm pathogenicity, mature and apparently healthy peach fruit cv. Pavia Canario were inoculated with the three representative isolates of C. siamense (six fruit per isolate). Fruit were surface disinfested with 70% ethanol and wounded with a sterile needle at two equidistant points (1 mm diameter x 1 mm deep). Then, fruit were inoculated with 5 µl of a spore suspension (1×106 conidia mL-1) in four inoculation points per fruit (two wounded and two unwounded). Six fruit mock-inoculated with 5 µl sterile water were used as controls. Inoculated fruit were placed in moist chamber and incubated at 25°C during 10 days. Anthracnose lesions appeared at 2 and 4 days after inoculation in wounded and unwounded points, respectively. After 7 days, disease incidence was 100% and 67% for wounded and unwounded fruit, respectively. The control treatment remained symptomless. The pathogens were re-isolated from all lesions and re-identified as C. siamense. C. siamense was previously reported in South Carolina causing anthracnose on peach (Hu et al. 2015). To our knowledge, this is the first report of anthracnose disease on peach caused by C. siamense in Uruguay. Effective management strategies should be implemented to control anthracnose and prevent the spread of this disease to other commercial peach orchards.

Plant roots support complex microbial communities that can influence nutrition, plant growth, and health. In grapevine, little is known about the impact of abiotic stresses on the below-ground microbiome. In this study, we examined the drought-induced shifts in fungal composition in the root endosphere, the rhizosphere and bulk soil by internal transcribed spacer (ITS) high-throughput amplicon sequencing (HTAS). We imposed three irrigation regimes (100%, 50%, and 25% of the field capacity) to one-year old grapevine rootstock plants cv. SO when plants had developed 2–3 roots. Root endosphere, rhizosphere, and bulk soil samples were collected 6-and 12-months post-plantation. Drought significantly modified the overall fungal composition of all three compartments, with the root endosphere compartment showing the greatest divergence from well-watered control (100%). The overall response of the fungal microbiota associated with black-foot disease (Dactylonectria and “Cylindrocarpon” genera) and the potential biocontrol agent Trichoderma to drought stress was consistent across compartments, namely that their relative abundances were significantly higher at 50–100% than at 25% irrigation regime. We identified a significant enrichment in several fungal genera such as the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Funneliformis during drought at 25% watering regime within the roots. Our results reveal that drought stress, in addition to its well-characterized effects on plant physiology, also results in the restructuring of grapevine root microbial communities, and suggest the possibility that members of the altered grapevine microbiota might contribute to plant survival under extreme environmental conditions., This work was partially supported by project No. TP01010018 and by the infrastructure obtained from project CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_017/0002334.