First Report of Twig Canker of Hazelnut Caused by Fusarium lateritium in Italy

Cultivation of hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) has considerable economic potential in Italy, in particular, in the northern Lazio Region. Since early summer of 2000, cankered twigs have been observed on hazelnut trees that were severely affected by gray necrosis, which is a disease complex causing fruit drop (1). In subsequent years, sunken areas were observed on 1-year-old shoots from late April through May. The resulting cankers had reddish brown margins and the death of the cambium in the infected area and produced an L-shaped malformation of twigs. Girdling of the twig by the canker resulted in death of the foliage. Yellow-to-orange sporodochia were evident on cankers by early June. Isolations were made from the margins of young cankers from 20 twigs collected from 10 trees. Tissue pieces were plated onto potato dextrose agar (PDA) after surface disinfection with 1% sodium hypochlorite. Slow-growing, cream-to-reddish brown colonies with sparse aerial mycelium emerged from 80% of diseased tissue pieces ...