VIEW ARTICLE

Research.

A Reexamination of Mango Decline in Florida. Randy C. Ploetz, University of Florida, IFAS, Tropical Research and Education Center, 18905 S.W. 280th Street, Homestead 33031-3314. David Benscher, Aime Vazquez, Angel Colls, Julianne Nagel, and Bruce Schaffer, University of Florida, IFAS, Tropical Research and Education Center, 18905 S.W. 280th Street, Homestead 33031-3314. Plant Dis. 80:664. Accepted for publication 6 March 1996. Copyright 1996 The American Phytopathological Sociely. DOI: 10.1094/PD-80-0664.

Decline syndromes are recognized in virtually all mango-production regions. During a study to clarify the cause(s) of this problem in Florida, we sampled symptomatic tissue from different sources of affected mango (Mangifera indica) trees. In laboratory assays, the fungi that were most often isolated included, alphabetically: Alternaria alternata, Cladosporium sp., Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, Dothiorella dominicana, Fusarium spp., Lasiodiplodia theobromae, Penicillium sp., Pestalotiopsis sp., and Phomopsis spp. The relative abundance of the species that were isolated varied by sample source and date. During artificial inoculation experiments on mango cv. Keitt, A. alternata, C. gloeosporioides, D. dominicana, L theobromae, and two species of Phomopsis caused all or some of the following decline symptoms: bud necrosis, tip dieback, gummosis, and vascular discoloration. The data suggest that mango decline in Florida is a disease complex involving several different fungi. D. dominicana is reported here as a pathogen of mango for the first time in the United States.