Isolation of Fusarium from vanilla plants grown in the Huasteca Potosina Mexico

Abstract

Vanilla is an orchid of economic importance in Mexico and the world. Among the zones of Mexico where this orchid is produced, we can find the Huasteca region in the state of San Luis Potosi. Recently it was observed in plants cultivated in this region, the presence of symptoms such as chlorosis, necrosis, and wilting. Considering these symptoms as characteristic of fungal infections, the goal of this work was to identify the fungi associated with these plants. To achieve it, leaves, stems, and fruits of plants with symptoms were collected, washed, cut, and inoculated on PDA medium. Under these conditions fungal colonies grew, which were used to obtain monosporic cultures, identified later by microcultures and amplification and sequencing of Internal Transcribed Spacers (ITS) region. The sequences were analyzed by BLAST in NCBI. The isolated fungi showed morphological characteristics of the Fusarium: violet mycelium, yellow-brown coloration in the culture medium, development of chlamydospores, macroconidia and microconidia. The ITS sequences showed 100% of query cover and 99.5% similarity with Fusarium oxysporum isolate O309 (MT032690.1), confirming the presence of Fusarium in the plants analyzed. Interestingly, this work is the first report of Fusarium isolation and identification in vanilla plants grown in the state of San Luis Potosi.