Members of the Fusarium solani species complex associated with Sudden Death Syndrom SDS and Red Root Rot RRR of soy bean in Brazil
Glycine max, molecular phylogeny, plant disease management
Agricultural crop quality and productivity can be severely affected by the occurrence of plant diseases. Two of the important soybean diseases are sudden death syndrome and red root rot. The causal agents of those diseases varies but they are all members of the Fusarium solani species complex (FSSC), a diverse group with important pathogenic species to several crops. The objectives of this work were: (i) to define through molecular phylogeny the FSSC species associated with soybean in Brazil, (ii) to confirm their pathogenicity to soybean and (iii) to evaluate if there are differences in disease symptomatology induced by the species. Samples were obtained from different soybean producing areas of 5 Brazilian states. The phylogenetic analysis was performed using the second largest subunit of RNA polymerase (RPB2) and the intergenic region of anonymous loci 44 (L44) gene fragments. Pathogenicity tests were conducted in greenhouse conditions using one representative isolate for each species and the disease evaluation was performed 35 days after the inoculation. We obtained a collection of 36 isolates from all the major soybean producing regions of Brazil. With the molecular phylogeny analysis, we defined five distinct species within the FSSC. All inoculated isolates were pathogenic to soybean plants and were able to induce the typical interveinal foliar chlorosis and necrosis and also root rot symptoms. However, there were no statistical difference among them. This result confirms the diversity of SDS causal agents in Brazil which should raise the attention of the community to expand their research of SDS genetic resistance and disease control focusing on the interaction of soybean with the different F. solani species present in Brazil.