Identification of Monilinia Species Associated with Brown Rot Disease of Stone Fruit Trees in West Azarbaijan Province of Iran, Based on Morphological and Molecular Characteristics

This study was aimed to characterize the Monilinia species associated with brown rot disease of stone fruit trees in West Azarbaijan province, Iran. For this purpose, during the 2013-2014 growing seasons, samples were collected from stone fruit trees showing blossom and twig blight, rotten and mummified fruits symptoms. Monilinia isolates were identified based on cultural characteristics and morphological features of conidia on PDA, MEA and CHA culture media. A total number of 89 Monilinia isolates were recovered from symptomatic tissues. Based on the comparison of cultural and morphological characteristics of the isolates obtained in this study with those of reference isolates for M. laxa, M. fructicola and M. fructigena, all of the isolates were identified as M. laxa. The identity of our isolates was further confirmed using sequence data of ITS-rDNA region for the representative isolate. A phylogeny inferred based on the sequence data from ITS region, clustered our isolate in M. laxa clade together with other sequences retrieved from GenBank for this species. All of the attempts made for the induction of sexual stage under laboratory conditions were unsuccessful.