Taxonomy of fungal complex causing red-skin root of in China.

BACKGROUND

Red-skin root of Asian ginseng () significantly reduces the quality and limits the production of ginseng in China. The disease has long been thought to be a noninfectious physiological disease, except one report that proved it was an infectious disease. However, the causal agents have not been successfully determined. In the present study, we were to reveal the pathogens that cause red-skin disease.

METHODS

Ginseng roots with red-skin root symptoms were collected from commercial fields in Northeast China. Fungi were isolated from the lesion and identified based on morphological characters along with multilocus sequence analyses on internal transcription spacer, β-tubulin (), histone H3 (), and translation elongation factor 1α (). Pathogens were confirmed by inoculating the isolates in ginseng roots.

RESULTS

A total of 230 isolates were obtained from 209 disease samples. These isolates were classified into 12 species, including sp., , , , , , , , , and three novel species , , and . Among them, , , and had the highest isolation frequencies, being 36.1%, 20.9%, and 23.9%, respectively. All these species isolated were pathogenic to ginseng roots and caused red-skin root disease under appropriate condition.

CONCLUSION

Fungal complex is the causal agent of red-skin root in .