© Benaki Phytopathological Institute
Hellenic Plant Protection Journal - Special Issue
24
Crete, GR-710 04 Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
4
Direction of Environmental, Agricultural
Development and Trading, Department of Research and Horticulture Preservation
of Municipality of Heraklion
Pink rot of
Phoenix
and
Washingtonia
spe-
cies has become common in Heraklion
(Crete, Greece) in the last four years. The
disease is characterized by leaf spots, chlo-
rosis and necrosis, rachis spots and decay,
sheath and trunk rot, decline, and eventu-
ally death of infected plants, and a pinkish-
orange layer on the surfaces of infected tis-
sues. A filamentous fungus was consistently
isolated from the petiole tissues of diseased
leaves and from
the pinkish-orange char-
acteristic overlay. According to morpho-
logical (macroscopic and microscopic ex-
amination), molecular (sequencing of the
ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 region and part of the 18S
rRNA gene, and BLAST search) and phylo-
genetic (including representatives of rela-
tive fungal genera) analyses performed, the
pathogen was identified as
Nalanthamala
vermoesenii
(Biourge) Schroers (syn.
Penicil-
lium vermoesenii
,
Gliocladium vermoesenii
).
Artificial wound-inoculation tests on
P. ca-
nariensis
,
P. theophrasti
and
W. filifera
dem-
onstrated the pathogenicity of the fungus
to all three palm species, with
W. filifera
be-
ing the most susceptible.
N. vermoesenii
has
a worldwide distribution and has frequently
been documented on several palm species.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first
report of a palm disease caused by
N. vermo-
esenii
in Greece. It may be favoured by the
pruning of older leaves during early Spring
and the occurrence of the red palm weevil
Rhynchophorus ferrugineus
.
Characterization and distribution of mating type genes in the
Dothistroma Needle Blight pathogens
Z.G. N
AKOPOULOU
1
, C. P
ERLEROU
2
and S. D
IAMANDIS
1
1
Hellenic Agricultural Organisation “Demeter”, Forest Research Institute, GR-570 06
Vassilika, Thessaloniki, Greece.
2
Forest Service of Thessaloniki, Karatasou 1, GR-546
26 Thessaloniki, Greece
Dothistroma needle blight, also known as
red band needle blight, is one of the most
important diseases of
Pinus
spp. The disease
is caused by two very similar
Dothistroma
spp.,
D. septosporum
and
D. pini.
A total of 23
isolates from the area of Xanthi, N.E. Greece,
were assayed in order to identify the oc-
currence of
Dothistroma
spp. Four different
molecular techniques were applied in this
study including i) sequencing of the rDNA
ITS region ii) a species-specific ITS-RFLP
technique iii) mating type primers and iv)
a diagnostic microsatellite marker Doth_A.
The results of this study showed that all 23
isolates were characterized as
D. septospo-
rum
(Dorog) M. Mopelet, in an agreement
with the global distribution of the species.
In contrast, none of the isolates was iden-
tified as
D. pini
, which had, until recently,
been reported only in the USA, Russia and
Ukraine. Recently, and for the first time, the
occurrence of both species was reported in
the same area in France. Subsequently, the
two species have been reported to occur in
Hungary, at the same location, on the same
trees and even infecting the same needles.
Distribution of mating types of
Cryphonectria parasitica
in Greece
Z.G. N
AKOPOULOU
1
, C. P
ERLEROU
2
, A. D
ROUZAS
3
, A. M
ITSAKAKI
4
and S. D
IAMAMDIS
1
1
Hellenic Agricultural Organisation “Demeter”, Forest Research Institute, GR-570 06
Vassilika, Thessaloniki, Greece.
2
Forest Service of Thessaloniki, Karatasou 1, GR-546 26
Thessaloniki, Greece.
3
Laboratory of Systematic Botany and Phytogeography, School
