New host for Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in the ne region of Romania

Abstract

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary (1884) is a fungal plant pathogen with worldwide distribution and causes diseses as white mold, Sclerotinia stalk rot, Sclerotinia head rot, watery pod rot or cottony soft rot. Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is capabile of infecting many plant species from different botanical families and can cause damage to a large variety of crops as sunflower, soybean, dry bean, canola, some vegetables or in ornamental plants. In Romania, there are very few informations about Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in ornamental plants. In the spring of 2021, we found symptoms of white mold on Forsythia spp. plants from arboretum park of Iasi University of Life Sciences (IULS), located in Iasi city, Romania. The symptoms appeared in water soaked lesions form on flower petals and leaves, infections that has progressed into branch tissue resulting wilt of individual branches. Sclerotinia sclerotiorum isolations were made from leaf and branch tissue fragment from Forsythia spp.