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The influence of rainfall on the mycobiota isolated from grapevine pruning wounds

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Abstract

Grapevine trunk diseases cause substantial economic loss worldwide. Grapevines are susceptible to infection by the causal agents when pruning during dormancy coincides with rainfall. The ascospores of Eutypa lata, the causal agent of the trunk disease Eutypa dieback, are released by fruiting bodies following rainfall and infect fresh wounds in woody tissue. Wound-colonising microbes have the potential to compete with the pathogen but the effect on such microbes of exposure of wounds on grapevines to rainfall has not been investigated. The presence of microbes in grapevine pruning wounds, both exposed to and sheltered from rainfall, was investigated at weekly intervals for one month following pruning. Surface disinfected tissue was cultured and the predominant microbes identified by morphology and by Sanger sequencing. Epicoccum nigrum, Aureobasidium pullulans, Alternaria and Cladosporium spp. were the predominant fungi, E. lata was not isolated and bacteria were isolated only rarely. The number of microbes found in rainfall-exposed wounds was greater than in those protected from rainfall and, of the above-mentioned, Epicoccum nigrum was predominant. Three of these species competed for space with E. lata when co-cultured in vitro.

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The data will be available in Henderson's PhD thesis in due course.

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Acknowledgements

The University of Adelaide provided funding and infrastructure support and SARDI provided infrastructure support. Michael McCarthy provided supervision during the conduct of the investigation and, with Paul Petrie and Marcos Bonada, access to the SARDI vineyard site at Nuriootpa, South Australia. The authors acknowledge Ricardo dos Santos, University of São Paulo, Brazil for DNA sample preparation and interpretation of sequencing results, and Paul Gooding, Maia Rabinovich and John Stephen, Australian Genome Research Facility, for DNA sequencing and advice. Cathryn Todd, Suzanne McKay, Matthew Ayres and Brittany Oswald (SARDI) provided advice about experimental protocols and the identity of fungal isolates.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, Waite Research Institute, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia

    Bruce Henderson, Mark R. Sosnowski & Eileen S. Scott

  2. South Australian Research and Development Institute, GPO Box 397, Adelaide, SA, 5001, Australia

    Mark R. Sosnowski

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  1. Bruce Henderson
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  3. Eileen S. Scott
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Contributions

BH, MS and ES contributed to conception and design of the project. BH conducted field and laboratory work and analysed the data. BH, MS and ES contributed to interpretation of the data. BH drafted the manuscript and ES and MS provided critical review and revision. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Eileen S. Scott.

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Henderson, B., Sosnowski, M.R. & Scott, E.S. The influence of rainfall on the mycobiota isolated from grapevine pruning wounds. Australasian Plant Pathol. 52, 271–282 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13313-023-00917-9

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