Determination of stem fungal diseses of grapevine in malatya province by morphological and methods

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is one of the most prevalent and long standing cultivated crops in the world thanks to its non-selective climate and soil demands, types of usage and having a wide range of varieties. Turkey has a rich grapevine gene pool because of its favorable climate zone. Viticulture, which has an important role in agriculture, faces a lot of problems in the process of production to marketing. Among them, fungal diseases take an important place by limiting the production wherever grapevine is cultivated. It is aimed to determine the stem fungal diseases that cause drying in viticulture areas of Malatya province with this research. For this reason, Arapgir, Yeşilyurt, Battalgazi and Darende distrcits of Malatya province, where grapevine is intensely cultivated, were surveyed in two different vegetation periods and samples were taken from symptomatic plants. Surveys were conducted in totally 2400 da area. Sixty-nine infected plant samples were collected and 240 fungal isolates were obtained from these infected plants. Identification of these isolates were performed according to morphological properties and by molecular methods. Sequence analyses were performed by using ITS, β-Tubulin, LSU and TEF-1α primers and the comparisons with other sequences from GenBank were obtained using the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, BLASTn program, of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). As a result of the identification studies, Botryosphaeria spp., Phaeomoniella chlamydospora, Fomitiporia mediterranea, Cytospora viticola, Neoscytalidium dimidiatum, Neoscytalidium novaehollandiae Dothyorella spp., Lasiodiplodia spp. and numerous of saprophyte fungi were determined. The pathogenty trials were performed to one isolate of Cytospora viticola and Neoscytalidium dimidiatum, which are the first records for Turkey on grapevine. Cytospora viticola was first recorded in Turkey after its report in America in grapevine cultivation areas of the world. KEYWORDS: Grapevine, Malatya, stem, fungal, pathogen