Isolation and Molecular Identification of Fusarium Oxysporum Isolates From Cotton Crops in Alabama

Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum races present in Alabama.

Castillo, J.D., Lawrence, K.S., Scott, T. , Moore, S. R., and K. M. Glass

Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum is a wilting pathogen of cotton, and recent reports of known races has been founded in the U.S. The race 4, previously thought to occur only in Asia, appeared in California in 2001 and has since caused significant problems for the San Joaquin Valley cotton industry.  Four novel genotypes were recently reported from a small sample of isolates collected from Arkansas and Georgia.  The presence of race 8 has been confirmed in California, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and Missouri, and race 3 is also present in California and Louisiana. To verify the races of this pathogen present in Alabama, 58 isolates Fusarium spp. from 10 different cotton cultivars were obtained.  Diagnosis of F.oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum was based on the difference of small nucleotides sequences on the ITS regions using the specific primers Fov1 and Fov2. Data will be analyzed with ClustaW software, and sequences will be aligned and compared in a Phylogenetic tree using Neighbor-joining algorithm of Mega 4.1 software.