Fungi associated with canker and regressive death in Aristotelia chilensis growing in Southern Chile
Erika Briceno: Universidad Austral de Chile
<div>Maqui (<em>Aristotelia chilensis</em>) is a Chilean native tree known by producing berries with high antioxidant content. Its cropping area has increased continuously across years, and several local ecotypes have been selected for fruit yield and quality.. Commercial orchards located at the Los Rios and Los Lagos Regions, Southern Chile, have shown several disease symptoms on productive wood, such as dry and humid corky like cankers on trunk, branches and twigs. In addition, cutting death and root development delays have been observed in several Maqui nurseries. A number of samples were collected for these symptoms, and several pathogens isolated. Pathogen identification was conducted using morphological evaluations, and later corroborated phylogenetically utilizing ITS4 / ITS5 sequences. <em>Neofusicoccum</em> spp. was isolated from cuttings, <em>Cylindrocarpon</em> sp. and <em>Dicostroma</em> sp. from corky and humid looking cankers, and <em>Diaporthe</em> sp., from cankers associated with regressive death,. Pathogenicity tests were carried out on semi-woody branches to fulfill Koch's postulates. All identified pathogens were recovered from individual plants or coexisting in the same Maqui plant.</div>
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