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A Gummosis Disease of Peach Trees Caused by Botryosphaeria dothidea. D. J. Weaver, Research Plant Pathologist, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Southern Region, Southeastern Fruit and Tree Nut Research Station, P.O. Box 87, Byron, Georgia 31008; Phytopathology 64:1429-1432. Accepted for publication 4 June 1974. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-64-1429.

A gummosis bark disease of peach trees has seriously affected many thousands of trees in the Fort Valley area of Georgia in the past 4 yr. Cultures of Botryosphaeria dothidea were isolated from bark of peach trees that had numerous gum deposits on trunks, limbs, and twigs. Symptoms included sunken lesions around lenticels, circular to oval-shaped necrotic areas in bark beneath infected lenticels, and blisters on surfaces of shoots and twigs. Symptoms were reproduced within 18 mo after wounded limbs were inoculated with mycelia of B. dothidea. Stromata containing pycnidia and perithecia were produced in lenticels of infected bark and in culture. Optimum temp for fungal growth in vitro was 28 C, but good growth was obtained at 36 C, and slight growth at 38 C.