VIEW ARTICLE

Postharvest Pathology and Mycotoxins

Pleospora bjoerlingii in the USA. W. M. Bugbee, Plant pathologist, Federal Research, Science and Education Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and adjunct professor, Department of Plant Pathology, North Dakota State University, Fargo 58102; Phytopathology 69:277-278. Accepted for publication 6 September 1978. This article is in the public domain and not copyrightable. It may be freely reprinted with customary crediting of the source. The American Phytopathological Society, 1979. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-69-277.

Pleospora bjoerlingii, the perfect stage of Phoma betae, developed on seedstalks of sugarbeet after inoculation of the flowering plants with conidia of Phoma betae following harvest, and exposure of the seedstalks outdoors. Single-ascospore isolates were more virulent than a standard Phoma isolate on genotypes developed for storage-rot resistance. The Pleospora stage was found on sugarbeet seedstalk stubble in the Salem, Oregon, area where most of the seed used by the U.S. sugarbeet industry is produced.