Occurrence of black rot disease of sugarcane caused by Ceratocystis adiposa in Iran

During the surveys of sugarcane fields of Amir Kabir agro-industry in Khuzestan province in 2015, black rot symptoms were observed in underground parts of sugarcane plants (cultivar Sp 70-1143). Symptomatic plant samples were collected and transferred into the laboratory, surface sterilized with 1% sodium hypochlorite and were grown on potato-dextrose-agar amended with streptomycin sulfate (100 ppm/L). Ceratocystis Ellis & Hals. was isolated from all examined plant samples. The nuclear ITS-rDNA region of a representative isolate (AP2) was amplified and sequenced using ITS1/ITS4 primer pairs (White et al. 1990). A Blast search of the ITS-rDNA sequence (KX008521) in GenBank, revealed a 100% identity with different isolates of Ceratocystis adiposa.