First report on wilt disease of mango caused by Ceratocystis fimbriata in Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Wilt disease of mango (Mangifera indica L.) caused by Ceratocystis spp. has caused great losses to mango industry. In India, increased incidence of mango wilt was reported by farmers in Uttar Pradesh. Since, no systematic studies regarding mango wilt were carried out in past, major mango growing areas of Uttar Pradesh were surveyed during 2012–2016 to understand the disease. Incidence of Ceratocystis wilt was confirmed in 42 orchards out of 1917 orchards surveyed. Disease symptoms appeared in the form of sudden wilt, decline and branch drying. Severe oozing of gum was mostly observed from trunk of wilted trees. On exposing vascular tissues, reddish-brown to dark brown or black discoloration was observed. The fungus was isolated from infected root and stem tissues and rhizosphere soil on carrot discs and identified as Ceratocystis fimbriata. Pathogenicity of C. fimbriata was confirmed on mango seedlings. PCR amplification of the ITS regions resulted in amplification of ~ 500 base pair (bp) fragment. The BLASTn sequence analysis showed alignment of identified isolate with C. fimbriata that was clearly delineated from close species viz. C. manginecans and C. albifundus. Thus, this is the first report of C. fimbriata causing mango wilt from India, which is unique and variable from C. maginecans reported earlier from Pakistan and Oman. Ceratocystis wilt disease of mango has now posed great threat to mango industry in Uttar Pradesh, India.