Isolation, molecular identification and in vitro screening of Talaromyces purpurogenus for the first report as lemon soft- rot causal agent in Egypt

Hassan, Naglaa M; Khalaphallah, R.

doi:10.21608/svuijas.2024.284747.1362

Isolation, molecular identification and in vitro screening of Talaromyces purpurogenus for the first report as lemon soft- rot causal agent in Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Naglaa M Hassan ¹
R. Khalaphallah ²

¹ Department of Agricultural Botany (Plant pathology), Faculty of Agriculture, South Valley University, 83523 Qena, Egypt.

² Department of Agricultural Botany (Microbiology), Faculty of Agriculture, South Valley University, 83523 Qena, Egypt.

10.21608/svuijas.2024.284747.1362

Abstract

lemon (Citrus limon L.) is one of the fruit crops that is most widely cultivated worldwide. Seven isolates of Penicillium sp were isolated from infected lemon fruits with soft rot pathogen collected from different lemon farm’s grown under Qena governorate, Upper-Egypt. Pathogenicity test under laboratory conditions reveled that all isolates caused lemon soft rot with different degree. Isolate(Q-66) was the most aggressive one. Morphological identification appeared that the fungus related to Talaromyces species. Molecular analysis confirmed the fungus had 99.47% to 100% similarity of DNA with Talaromyces purpureogenus. Effect of Trichoderma harzianum, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida oleophila for inhibit the soft rot pathogen growth linear in vitro was tested, the most significant reduction in the linear growth of the fungus was achieved by Trichoderma harzianum (88.3%) followed by Saccharomyces cerevisiae (80.4%), and Candida oleophila had (76%). For our knowledge this is the first report of Talaromyces purpurogenus fungus isolation in Egypt as lemon fruits soft rot causal agent.

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