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Disease Note. First Report of Strawberry Anthracnose Caused by Colletotrichum acutatum in Connecticut. J. A. LaMondia, Department of Plant Pathology and Ecology, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Valley Laboratory, P.O. Box 248, Windsor, CT 06095. Plant Dis. 75:1286. Accepted for publication 23 August 1991. Copyright 1991 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/PD-75-1286A. In early June 1991, an anthracnose fruit rot was observed in 3- to
5-yr-old plants of strawberry (Fragaria X ananassa Duchesne) cultivars
Honeoye, Kent, and NY-I 13 in Hartford, New Haven, and Tolland
counties in Connecticut. Fruit symptoms included sunken, light brown,
water-soaked lesions that produced spore masses from subepidermal
acervuli. Fruit became mummified under dry conditions. Isolations
onto potato-dextrose agar from diseased green or ripe fruit and from
brown stolon lesions yielded colonies of Colletotrichum acutatum J.H.
Simmonds (1) with white to gray aerial mycelium and orange to
salmon-colored spore masses. Colony diameters averaged 40 mm after
5 days at 25 C. Fusiform conidia from cultures averaged 14.5 X 5
µ, and setae were absent from fruit and PDA cultures. Healthy green
Honeoye fruit inoculated with conidia showed similar symptoms after
3-4 days; the pathogen was reisolated from diseased fruit. This is
the first report of strawberry anthracnose in Connecticut. |