Molecular and Pathogenic Characterization of Species Associated with Corm Rot Disease in Saffron from China.

Saffron ( L.) is a commercial spice crop well-known throughout the world, valued for culinary, colorant, and pharmaceutical purposes. In China, was detected as causative agent of saffron corm rot, the most pervasive disease for the first time in 2020. In the present study, 261 -like isolates were recovered from 120 rotted corms in four saffron producing fields at Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Yunnan provinces, China, in 2021. A combination of morpho-cultural features and multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) of the concatenated (DNA-directed RNA polymerase II largest subunit) and (translation elongation factor 1-α) partial sequences showed that the isolates from saffron belong to as well as , and with isolation frequencies of 58.2%, 26.8%, and 14.9%, respectively. Notably, was more prevalent than in the collected samples. Pathogenicity tests confirmed that both species were pathogenic on saffron corm. This is the first report of and causing corm rot of saffron, globally. Outcomes of the current research demonstrate that spp. associated with saffron corm rot are more diverse than previously reported. Furthermore, some plants were infected by two or more species. Our findings broaden knowledge about spp. that inflict corm rot and assist the development of control measures.