As a world-famous ornamental flower, petal blight of Camellia reticulata has been a persistent disease that has troubled the industry for many years. It has a huge impact on the ornamental value of camellia and has deeply hit the development of the entire industry. There has been no good treatment for the so-called camellia cancer Petal Blight in the world at present. In recent years, Wang Chao's team from Southwest Forestry University has conducted a systematic study on petal blight disease of Camellia reticulata in Yunnan. Chaetomium pseudocochliodes was identified as the cause of petal blight of Camellia reticulata by laboratory tissue separation, pathogenicity determination, morphology and molecular biology identification, which is a breakthrough for the petal blight desease. The results have been published in Plant Disease online as First Look in January 2022. Previous studies had suggested that petal blight disease of Camellia was caused by infection by Ciborinia camelliae. There are also studies that petal blight disease of Camellia was caused by the infection of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Botrytis Cinerea of Ascomycetes. The identification of a new pathogen of petal blight disease of Camellia reticulata in Yunnan, provides a new basis for the prevention and control of the disease for Camellia reticulata in Yunnan, and is of great significance to the cultivation and management of Camellia culture in Yunnan and the construction of urban landscaping landscapes. This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China (2019YFD100100005) and the Scientific Research Fund of Yunnan Education Department (2021Y259, 2021J0172). Pu Meiying as the first author and a postgraduate student, made outstanding contributions. Published articles link: https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-12-21-2767-PDN.
Chinese News: https://camellia.iflora.cn/Notices/Index?id=42
Figure 1 Comparison of healthy Camellia reticulata ‘Shizitou’ and infected Camellia reticulata ‘Shizitou’
