Verticillium wilt of Ailanthus altissima in Italy caused by V. dahliae: new outbreaks from Tuscany

doi:10.3832/ifor3238-013

Verticillium wilt of Ailanthus altissima in Italy caused by V. dahliae: new outbreaks from Tuscany

Claudia Pisuttu, Alessandra Marchica, Rodolfo Bernardi, Antonella Calzone, Lorenzo Cotrozzi, Cristina Nali, Elisa Pellegrini, Giacomo Lorenzini

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 13, Issue 3, Pages 238-245 (2020)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor3238-013
Published: Jun 19, 2020 - Copyright © 2020 SISEF

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Verticillium spp., including V. nonalfalfae and V. dahliae, are known vascular wilt pathogens of the invasive Ailanthus altissima (tree-of-heaven) in the United States and in Europe. Herein we provide evidence of the presence of a previously unreported wilt disease of A. altissima in Tuscany (Central Italy). Several isolates were collected from two locations and identified as V. dahliae, based on microscopical features of conidiophores, conidia and microsclerotia. Genomic DNA was extracted from the mycelium, the ITS region was amplified and the sequence was deposited in GenBank as VdGL16 (accession no. MK474459). BLASTn analysis showed 100% similarity with V. dahliae. To confirm pathogenicity of VdGL16, inoculations of Ailanthus seedlings were performed with the root dipping technique whereas mature trees were stem-inoculated. All inoculated seedlings exhibited wilt symptoms after 20 days, while mature Ailanthus trees showed wilting and dieback after six months. The pathogen was easily re-isolated from seedlings and re-identified as V. dahliae, thus satisfying Koch’s postulates. Results from intraspecific resistance screening of nine seed sources from across Italy revealed that Ailanthus provenances from all the six sampled regions were susceptible to V. dahliae. Stem inoculated adult plants exhibited abundant production of epicormic sprouts along the stem within six months, and most of these sprouts wilted following initial dieback of the main stem; furthermore, sprouting from the crown was intense. Petioles and rachises tissues of leaves fallen from infected trees were a good source for re-isolation of the pathogen; we proved that such petioles and rachises can effectively transfer the fungus to healthy Ailanthus seedlings via root infections. Host-specificity of the V. dahliae isolate VdGL16 was also determined on 40 non-target species/varieties/cultivars. The isolate caused disease in herbaceous species belonging to five botanical families: Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Leguminoseae, Linaceae and Solanaceae. Given the difficulties in countering Ailanthus invasion with mechanical and chemical methods, the biological control using Verticillium may provide an efficient, low cost and sustainable control of this invasive species.

Keywords

Tree-of-heaven, Verticillium dahliae, ITS Region, Accession Number MK474459, Koch’s Postulates, Biocontrol

Authors’ address

(1)

0000-0002-4634-2968
0000-0001-7513-7712
0000-0001-8182-5351
0000-0002-4401-3896
0000-0002-8228-0258
0000-0001-9237-5341
0000-0002-6371-5105
Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the University of Pisa, v. del Borghetto 80 - 56124 Pisa (Italy)

Corresponding author

Giacomo Lorenzini
giacomo.lorenzini@unipi.it

Citation

Pisuttu C, Marchica A, Bernardi R, Calzone A, Cotrozzi L, Nali C, Pellegrini E, Lorenzini G (2020). Verticillium wilt of Ailanthus altissima in Italy caused by V. dahliae: new outbreaks from Tuscany. iForest 13: 238-245. - doi: 10.3832/ifor3238-013

Academic Editor

Alberto Santini

Paper history

Received: Sep 13, 2019
Accepted: Apr 18, 2020

First online: Jun 19, 2020
Publication Date: Jun 30, 2020
Publication Time: 2.07 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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