First report of a stunt nematode

During a survey of plant parasitic nematodes in 2019, at Gansu Province, China, the stunt nematode Tylenchorhynchus zeae was found parasitizing corn seedlings. Females, males and juveniles of T. zeae were observed on soil and roots samples of corn after processing and extraction. This population of stunt nematodes was identified based on morphological and by sequencing the ITS1 region of rDNA and D2/D3 fragments of the 28 S rRNA. The ITS1 and the D2/D3 sequences of this population, shared 99.00 to 99.05% and 99.43 to 99.73% of similarity with sequences corresponding to T. zeae in GenBank, respectively. This is the first report of T. zeae infecting corn in Gansu Province, northwest China.