The pathogen causing Phomopsis twig blight of blueberry

Blueberry twig blight was discovered in Shandong Province recently. Three isolates were obtained by single-spore separation method and inoculation experiment was carried out. Morphological observation and rDNA-ITS sequence analysis indicated that the pathogen is Phomopsis vaccinii, the anamorph of Diaporthe vaccinii. To our knowledge, this is the first report of Phomopsis vaccinii leading to twig blight of blueberry in China.