Abstract:Fruit rot is a major disease symptom in harvested Chinese olive fruit. In order to clarify the chief pathogens causing fruit rot in harvested Chinese olives, the fruit of ‘Changying’ Chinese olive [Canarium album (Lour.) Raeusch ‘Changying’], a main Chinese olive cultivar in Fujian Province, was used for isolating pathogens causing fruit rot via tissue isolation and traditional pure culture, followed by pathogenicity verification of the isolated pathogen by Koch’s postulates. The DNA of the isolated pathogen was extracted by fungal genomic DNA-isolation methods, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to amplify rDNA internal transcribed spacer-region sequences, and the amplified product was sequenced. The homologous nucleotide sequences of the pathogen were further analyzed using the basic local alignment search tool (http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi). The corresponding phylogenetic tree for the isolated pathogen was constructed using the neighbor-joining method combined with morphological, molecular biology, and phylogenetic analysis to identify the pathogenic bacterial species causing ‘Changying’ Chinese olive fruit rot. The results showed that Pestalotiopsis microspora was the pathogen causing fruit rot in harvested Chinese olives. These findings provide a scientific basis for fruit-rot control and extension of the storage life of Chinese olives.
