First Report of Preharvest Fruit Rot of 'Pink Lady' Apples Caused by Colletotrichum fructicola in Italy

In late summer 2019, a severe outbreak of fruit rot was observed in commercial 'Pink Lady' apple orchards (>20 ha in total) in the region Emilia-Romagna (Northern Italy). The symptoms on the fruit appeared as small circular red to brown lesions. Disease incidences of over 50% of the fruits were observed. To isolate the causal agent, 15 affected apples were collected and small portions of fruit flesh were excised from the lesion margin and placed on potato dextrose agar (PDA). The plates were incubated at 20°C in the dark, and pure cultures were obtained by transferring hyphal tips on PDA. The cultures showed light to dark gray, cottony mycelium, with the underside of the culture being brownish and becoming black with age. Conidia (n=20) were cylindrical, aseptate, hyaline, rounded at both ends, and 12.5 to 20.0 × 5.0 to 7.5 μm. The morphological characteristics were consistent with descriptions of species of the species complex, including (Weir et al. 2012). The identity of two representative isolates (PinkL2 & PinkL3) from different apples was confirmed by means of multi-locus gene sequencing. Genomic DNA was extracted using the LGC Mag Plant Kit (Berlin, Germany) in combination with the Kingfisher method (Waltham, USA). Molecular identification was conducted by sequencing the ITS1/ITS4 region and partial sequences of four other gene regions: chitin synthase ( ), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase ( ), actin ( ), and beta-tubulin ( ). The sequences have been deposited in GenBank under accession numbers MT421924 & MT424894 ( ), MT424612 & MT424613 ( ), MT424616 & MT424617 ( ), MT424614 & MT424615 ( ), and MT424620 & MT424621 ( ). MegaBLAST analysis revealed that our ITS sequences matched with 100% identity to (Genbank JX010177). The , , and sequences of both isolates were 100% identical with culture collection sequences in Genbank (JX009807, JX009923, JX009436 and JX010400, respectively), confirming the identity of these isolates as . Koch's postulates were performed with 10 mature 'Pink Lady' apples. Surface sterilized fruit were inoculated with 20 μl of a suspension of 10 conidia ml after wounding with a needle. The fruits were incubated at 20˚C at high relative humidity. Typical symptoms appeared within 4 days on all fruit. Mock-inoculated controls with sterile water remained symptomless. The fungus was reisolated and confirmed as by morphology and sequencing of all previously used genes. Until recently the reported causal agents of bitter rot of