Colletotrichum aenigma Associated with Apple Bitter Rot on Newly Bred cv. RubyS Apple

The abnormal brown sunken lesions were observed on cv. RubyS apple fruits in an orchard located in Gunwi, Gyeongbuk province, Korea. The primary observed symptoms such as small round sunken lesions and small black dots on the symptomatic area were different from the reported apple diseases. The affected apple fruits were sampled and subjected to isolation of the causal agent. Cultural and morphological characteristics of isolated fungal strain, designated KNUF-20GWA4, were similar to that of Colletotrichum spp. Based on multilocus sequence analyses using internal transcribed spacer regions and partial sequences of β-tubulin, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, chitin synthase, and actin genes, strain KNUF-20GWA4 showed 99.2-100% similarities with C. aenigma ICMP 18608 and the isolate clustered together with several other strains of this species in the phylogenetic tree. To our knowledge, this is the first report of bitter rot on apple fruits caused by C. aenigma.