New disease caused by Neoscytalidium dimidiatum devastates tomatoes (Solarium lycopersicum) in Turkey

A novel disease of tomato (Solarium lycopersicum L.) was observed in the Southeast Anatolia Region of Turkey. Symptoms were blight of all aerial parts of the plant, including stems, branches, leaves, petioles, flowers and fruits, defoliation, root rot, inner stem necrosis, and plant death. The disease was found in 13.9% of surveyed fields, with an incidence varying from 3% to nearly 75% (average 21.2%) of the plants in symptomatic fields. The average severity of blight on stem in fields with the symptomatic plant surveyed was 1.4%. A Botryosphaeriaceae species, identified as Neoscytalidium dimidiatum (Penz.) Crous & Slippers using morphological and cultural features, was consistently isolated from symptomatic roots, inner stems, and blighted leaves, shoots, stems, fruits and flowers. The partial nucleotide sequence data for three gene loci, including nuclear rDNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS), large subunit (LSU) genes and the translation elongation factor 1-alpha (TEF-1 alpha), confirmed the morphological identification. Furthermore, sequence data of actin genes from N. dimidiatwn was, for the first time, deposited to the GenBank. Koch's postulates were fulfilled by testing the susceptibility of different tomato tissues (leaves, stems, inner stems and roots of tomato seedlings, and detached tomato fruits and flowers) to N. dimidiatum inoculation. To our knowledge, this is the first report of N. dimidiatum on tomato.