Vol. 54 No. 3 (2015)
Research Papers

Vegetative incompatibility and potential involvement of a mycovirus in the Italian population of Geosmithia morbida

Lucio MONTECCHIO
Department Territorio e Sistemi Agroforestali, viale dell’Università 16, I-35020 Legnaro PD, Italy
Genny FANCHIN
Università di Padova
Valeria BERTON
Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie
Linda SCATTOLIN
Università di Padova

Published 2015-10-07

Keywords

  • thousand cankers disease,
  • walnut,
  • Juglans

How to Cite

[1]
L. MONTECCHIO, G. FANCHIN, V. BERTON, and L. SCATTOLIN, “Vegetative incompatibility and potential involvement of a mycovirus in the Italian population of Geosmithia morbida”, Phytopathol. Mediterr., vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 465–476, Oct. 2015.

Abstract

Studies carried out during an Italian outbreak of the Thousand Cankers Disease of walnut, demonstrated that non-coalescing cankers on host plants, separated by equidistant uninfected zones, were associated with incompatible strains of Geosmithia morbida. Confirmation of the vegetative incompatibility of paired fungal isolates, randomly collected from black walnuts, was obtained from observations of a clear separation zones and the absence of anastomoses. Pairing tests with two incompatible monoconidial strains indicated differences in morphology and growth rates. Electron microscopy revealed the presence of icosahedral mycovirus-like particles in one of the monoconidial strains that demonstrated low degrees of virulence in planta compared with a particle-free monoconidial strain. The occurrence of a vegetative incompatibility system in recently introduced populations of G. morbida has considerable implications for fungal biology. Incompatibility in G. morbida and potential direct or indirect roles of the observed virus-like particles have potential ecological and epidemiological consequences.

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