Occurrence of leaf spot disease caused by alternaria crassa (Sacc.) rands on jimson weed and potential additional host plants in Algeria

Abstract

A leaf spot pathogen Alternaria sp. was recovered from jimson weed, tomato, parsley, and coriander collected during surveys of blight diseases on Solanaceae and Apiaceae in Algeria. This species produced large conidi-al body generating long apical beaks that tapered grad-ually from a wide base to a narrow tip and short co-nidiophores originating directly from the agar surface. This species exhibited morphological traits similar to that reported for Alternaria crassa. The identification of seven strains from different hosts was confirmed by se-quence analyses at the glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate de-hydrogenase, RNA polymerase second largest subunit, and translation elongation factor 1-alpha loci. Further the pathogen was evaluated on jimson weed, coriander, parsley, and tomato plants, and this fungus was able to cause necrotic lesions on all inoculated plants. A. crassa is reported for the first time as a new species of the Al-gerian mycoflora and as a new potential pathogen for cultivated hosts.