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Fusarium Blight Symptoms on Seedling and Mature Merion Kentucky Bluegrass Plants Inoculated with Fusarium roseum and Fusarium tricinctum. D. E. Fulton, Graduate Assistant, Department of Plant Pathology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802; H. Cole, Jr.(2), and Paul E. Nelson(3). (2)(3)Professors, respectively, Department of Plant Pathology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802. Phytopathology 64:354-357. Accepted for publication 17 September 1973. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-64-354.

Complete death of areas of 2-yr-old field-grown Kentucky bluegrass ‘Merion’ sod in the greenhouse was induced by inoculation with Fusarium-infested grass clippings. Conidial suspensions sprayed upon sod killed scattered individual tillers, but large numbers of tillers were not killed within an area unless inoculated with infested grass clippings. These areas were similar to field symptoms of Fusarium blight, except that the serpentine or frog-eye patterns were not present. Inoculation of seedling and mature plants in growth chambers and in the greenhouse revealed large differences in the effects of temp, grass cultivar, and isolate on blight severity and death of individual plants.