ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1478798
Deciphering the morphological, molecular and pathogenic variability in diverse Fusarium species associated with potato dry rot disease
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Plant Pathology, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India
- 2Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research (ICAR), Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
- 3Center of Food Science and Technology, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana, India
- 4Department of Plant Pathology, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, Kerala, India
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Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) belongs to the family Solanaceae, a staple vegetable crop that is considered a promising source for global food security. Various biotic and abiotic stresses affect potato crops in the field as well as in post-harvest conditions. Among biotic stressesfactors, Fusarium dry rot incited by the Fusarium species complex is considered as a major threat to potato cultivation. Fusarium is one of the most serious pathogens causing dry rot in potato and resulting in huge yield losses. Also, the pathogen variability is vast depending upon the ecogeographical region of potato cultivation. Therefore, to investigate the diversity, pathogenicity, and ecological variability of Fusarium species associated with dry rot in potato, 55 dry rot samples of potato infected with Fusarium spp.ecies were collected and from them, 53 Fusarium isolates were retrieved and characterized through micromorphological and molecular methods. The studiesy revealed that the isolated Fusarium species spp. from the samples belonging to three species, namely Fusarium sambucinum, F. oxysporum, and F. solani based on blast analysis. Among the collected species F. sambucinum was the most dominant species with per cent occurrence frequency. Further, the pathogenicity tests of each isolate waswere conducted through the tuber inoculation method. The study revealed that out of all isolates, F. sambucinum was highly pathogenic on susceptible potato cultivar Kufri Chipsona and significantly different from other isolates in ANOVA analysis.Thus, the findings of this study can be used in the development of potential management strategies against the specific species of Fusarium involved in Fusarium dry rot. This study highlights the predominance and pathogenicity of Fusarium sambucinum among Fusarium species causing dry rot in potatoes, providing critical insights for developing targeted management strategies to mitigate yield losses and enhance potato crop resilience.
Keywords: Dry rot, Potato, morphological, molecular characterization, Fusarium
Received: 10 Aug 2024; Accepted: 09 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 ., Chauhan, Tiwari, Saini, Kumar and Rithesh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Prashant Chauhan, Department of Plant Pathology, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India
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