First report of Diplodia sapinea causing Diplodia tip blight on Juniperus communis subsp. communis in Finland

The species identification was confirmed from representative isolates using morphological characters and sequencing of the ITS region of rDNA and with species-specific primers (Adamson et al., 2021). The disease agent, D. sapinea, was previously found in Finland on Scots pine cones collected from the ground (Müller et al., 2019) and from healthy Scots pine twigs (Terhonen et al., 2021). Besides J. communis reported here, D. sapinea has been recently demonstrated to cause Diplodia tip blight in Finland on Scots pine (Terhonen, 2022). Diplodia sapinea is a new, broad-host opportunistic pathogen in Finland and the disease Diplodia tip blight can be expected to increase in alternative hosts, especially in areas that are vulnerable to abiotic changes (for example, drought).