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Verticillium dahliae and Verticillium nonalfalfae occurrence and abundance in several agricultural fields from Nova Scotia, Canada, assessed by real-time quantitative PCR

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Abstract

Verticillium dahliae and Verticillium nonalfalfae are soil-borne fungal pathogens with a ubiquitous geographical distribution affecting a wide range of plants of economic importance. Though Verticillium wilt represents a major problem for crop production in Nova Scotia, Canada, little is known about the distribution of these pathogens in the major agricultural areas from this province. To address the paucity of available data, a molecular-based survey of these Verticillium pathogens, documenting their distribution, incidence, and in-sample abundance, was carried out for two successive years, in several representative agricultural locations in this province. Soil and plant samples (potato and strawberry) were analyzed using real-time quantitative PCR targeting the Intergenic Spacer ribosomal DNA locus of the Verticillium pathogens. Molecular data revealed that V. dahliae has a wider distribution and a higher incidence than V. nonalfalfae (former V. albo-atrum group 1) in the tested fields while V. albo-atrum sensu stricto (former V. albo-atrum group 2) was not identified in any of the samples collected from this region. Also, V. dahliae was found to have a higher incidence in fields used to grow potatoes as compared to fields used to grow strawberries, irrespective of the rotating crops.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Nova Scotia Research Acceleration Fund RA14-0036. We thank Dr. Harold W. (Bud) Platt (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Charlottetown, PEI) for providing the strains V. dahliae 04-41 and V. nonalfalfae 1856, that were used to generate the standard curves for the qPCR method.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant, Food, and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University, Truro, NS, B2N 5E3, Canada

    Tudor Borza, Anjana Govindarajan, Jancy Stephen, Kris Pruski & Gefu Wang-Pruski

  2. Prospect Agri-Services, Cambridge Station, NS, B0P 1G0, Canada

    Kim Best

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  1. Tudor Borza
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  2. Anjana Govindarajan
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  3. Jancy Stephen
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  4. Kim Best
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  5. Kris Pruski
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  6. Gefu Wang-Pruski
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Correspondence to Gefu Wang-Pruski.

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This work was not submitted for publication to another journal. All authors listed have contributed to the work, have read the manuscript and declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest. This work was supported by the Nova Scotia Research Acceleration Fund RA14–0036.

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Borza, T., Govindarajan, A., Stephen, J. et al. Verticillium dahliae and Verticillium nonalfalfae occurrence and abundance in several agricultural fields from Nova Scotia, Canada, assessed by real-time quantitative PCR. Eur J Plant Pathol 154, 1171–1177 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-019-01712-3

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