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'{hipical Planl PalllOlof!Y. vol. 34. 3.175-177 (2009)---=2 Cl'p.vnght l'y the Brazilian Vhytopalhologicul Society. Print~d in Brad\V\.>,.,v.sbfno.clllll.br

Outbreak of stem bleeding in coconuts caused by Thielaviopsisparadoxa in Sergipe, Brazil

Embrapa Tabuleiros Costeiros, 49001-970, Aracaju, SE, Brazil ,

ABSTRACTIn February of 2004, at "Plato de Ne6polis". Sergipe, Brazil. about 50 coconut piants were found bearing symptoms of a disease

not yet recorded in Brazil. The trunk of diseased plants exhibited a reddish-brown or rust-<:oIored liquid bleeding from scars. Inside thestern, the tissues under the lesions "vere rotting and turned brownish-yellow to black, Diseased palms had reduced growth and three tofour months after the first symptoms were noticed the aftccted plants died. A fungus was isolated from diseased tissues and identified asThielaviopsis paradoxa, Healthy plants were inoculated with the fungus and lesions developed demonstrating the pathogenicity of theisolate,Keywords: Ceralocystis paradoxa. Chalara, Cocos nucijera.

RESUMOAtaque de resinose do coqueiro causada pOI' Thielavopsis pamdoXl/ em Sergipe, BrusH

Em fevereiro de 2004, na localidade "PIat() de Ne6polis". Sergipe, Brasil, cerca de 50 pl,mtas foram observadas apresentandosintomas de uma doelll;:a ainda mio registrada no Brasil. 0 estipe afetado apresentava um Iiquido avermelhado que saia de rachaduras.Estas areas apresentando rachaduras ao serem dissecadas tinham extcnsas pon;:oes de tecido em dccomposio;:ao, As plantas aprcsentavamcrescimento reduzido e de tres a quatro meses ap6s 0 aparecimento dos primeiros sintomas ocorria a morte das plantas, Um fungofoi isolado dos tecidos doentes e identificado como Thielaviopsis paradoxa, Planta'i sadias quando inoculada~ com 0 fungo tiveramdesenvolvimento de lesoes, 0 que demonstrou a patogenicidade do fungo isolado.Palavras-chave: Ceratocyslis paradoxa, C'ha/ara, Cocos Ilucifera,

The coconut tree (Cocos nuc(fera L.) is widelygrown along the Northeastern coast of Brazil as well as inother areas of Brazil. There is a large and increasing demandfor immature coconuts that are harvested and marketed forconsumption of their liquid endosperm (coconut water).This is mostly supplied by dwarf variety plantations andaverage productivity has been limited in Brazil to around3,400 fruits/hectare because of limited rainfall levels, pestsand diseases (Cuenca, 1994). Warwick et aL (2004) notedthe occurrence of what appeared to be a novel coconutdisease for Brazil at Plato de Neapolis (State of Sergipe).About 50 coconut plants were observed to have symptomsof stem bleeding, a disease that was previously unrecordedin Brazil.

The affected trunk areas exhibited dark discolorationand a reddish-brown or rust-colored liquid bleeding fromdifferent points (Figure I). Diseased palms had reducedgrowth and a gradual but progressive necrosis of the lowerpinnate leaf toward the midribs. Inside the stem, the tissuesunder the lesions were rotting and became brownish-yellowto black. Eventually the affected plants died. In evel)' case,the plant showing symptoms was also being attacked by theweevil Rhynchophorus palmarum L No attempt was made

to treat the diseased plants, which died within 3-4 monthsof the observation of the early stem symptoms. Other bioticdiseases that may be lethal to coconut palms, in Brazilare: red ring, caused by the nematode BursaphlelenchzLscocophilus (Warvvick & Bezerra, 1992); hartrot. caused byPhytornonas sp.; a flagellate protozoa (Renard, 1989), andeye-rot caused by two species of Phytophthora (Quillec &Renard, 1984).

In India, plants showing a similar disease wereproven to be attacked by Thielal'iopsis paradoxa (DeSeynes) Holm. (anamorphic Ceratocystidaceae). Thestudies in India showed that inoculation of healthy coconutplants with isolates obtained from diseased plants resultedin rusty brown discoloration of the bark within 2-8 weeks,followed by the oozing of a brownish liquid from stems.Re-isolation of T paradoxa was made from such diseasedtissues (Nambiar et aI., 1986). Stem bleeding of coconutis known to occur in nearly all the countries which growcoconut (Ohler, 1964), The disease was first reportedfrom Sri Lanka (Petch, 1906) and serious infection wasfound to lead to reduced yield (Nambiar & Sastry, 1988).In Indonesia stem bleeding causes severe damage to PB-121 hybrid and affects yield (Kartika et aI., 1984) The

EMBRAPA TABULEIROS COSTEIROSf::tiio:eC3 /hria Ferr€:ra de fvlelo

FIGURE 1 - Exudation of reddish-brown liquid through cracks on acoconut trunk.

teleomorph of T paradoxa. Ceratocystis paradoxa (Dade)C. Moreau, has already been recorded attacking COCOI)utplants in Amazonas State, Brazil (Alves & Lourd, 1985),but only causing immature fruit drop. Later, the samefungus was reported from Sergipe (Franco & FrancoFilho, 1986), causing inflorescence necrosis and affectingcoconut production. Further studies showed reduction ofthe photosynthetic activity on diseased plants, probablyowing to a reduction in the activity of absorption and/or translocation of nutrients and water (Warwick et aI.,2004).

Tissue fragments were removed from the lesionmargins, surface-sterilized in 70% ethanol, followed by45 see, 0,65% sodium hypochlorite and plated onto Petridishes (9-mm-diameter) with potato-dextrose agar. Cultureswere routinely incubated at 23-25°C on a laboratory bench.A 5-mm-diameter plug taken from the culture margin wastransferred to PDA for fungus purification. Morphology ofsuch isolates was typical of T paradoxa. The fungus hadpale brown mycelium and straight conidiophores up to 250~m in length. Each had a terminal phial ide. The conidiawere cylindrical colorless to pale brown (7-15 x 2.5-6 ~m). The chlamydospores were borne terminally in

chains. smooth, oval pale-brown to brownish-black (9-25x 6-15 ~m) (Nag Raj & Kendrick, 1975).

Pathogenicity of the fungus was tested by inoculating10 three-year-old, 12-leaved green dwarf coconuts in ascreen-house. Inoculum consisted of 5-mm-diameter plugstaken from a 7-day-old T.paradoxa culture grown on PDA.The plugs were placed on healthy trunks, rachis and folioleswhich were either intact or wounded. Wounds were madewith a sterilized cork borer. The sites of the inoculationswere wrapped with plastic tape to prevent desiccation; theexperiment was repeated 3 times. Controls received sterilePDA. The isolate was deposited in Coleyao de F~ngosMaria Menezes Recife PE, as strain CMM 1588.

Characteristic rusty-brown lesions appeared onlyon plants that were inoculated with the fungus and only onwounded trunks or rachis but not on healthy or woundedleaflets, two weeks after inoculation. A brownish liquidoozed from the points of inoculation. Controls did notshow any signs of disease development. T paradoxa wasre-isolated from the diseased tissues. This fungus is knownto be a polyphagous pathogen that enters the plants throughwounds provoked by various causes that may be eitherbiotic or abiotic in origin.

Attempts to control spread of the disease at the sitewhere this record was made failed to curtail epiphytotics,despite the following actions: interrupting irrigation,controlling the insect pest R. pa/marum. removing diseasedtissues from infected trees, applying fungicide sprays andremoving severely diseased plants from the area. Thespread of the infection is still advancing. An account ofthe situation in that area (December 2007) reports that ina single plantation of 6000 plants, approximately 2000coconut plants showed disease symptoms (1.A. SantosJunior, pel's. comlll.), a worrying situation.

The authors would like to thank Jose Luiz Bezerrafor his help with the identification of the fungus.

Alves MLB, Lourd M (1985) Podridao negra de frutos de cococausada pOl'Ceratocystis paradoxa em ManausAM. FitopatologiaBrasileira 10:233.

Cuenca MAG (1994) Importiincia econ6mica do coqueiro. In:Ferreira JMS, Warwick DRN, Siqueira LA (Eds.) Cultura docoqueiro no Brasil. Aracaju SE. EMBRAPA SPI.

Franco EA, Franco Filho E (1986) 0 enegrecimento dainftorescencia do coqueiro. Fitopatologia Brasileira 11:311.Resumo.

Kartika D, Soebagio FS, Turner PO, Brcure CJ (1984) Severestem bleeding and fhmd fracture of MAWA hybrid coconut inNorth Sumatra. Paper 51. International Conference on Cocoa andCoconut, Malaysia.

Nag Raj TR, Kendrick B (1975). A monograph of Chalara andallied genera. Waterloo. Canada. Wilti'id Laurier UniversityPress.

Nambiar KKL. Joshi Y. Venugopal MN. Mohan RC (1986)Stem bleeding disease of coconut: reproduction of symptoms byinoculation with Thielaviopsis paradoxa. Journal of PlantationCrops \4:130-133.

Nambiar KKL. Sastry K. RC (1988) Stem bleeding diseaseof coconut: reproduction of symptoms by inoculation withThielaviopsis paradoxa. Journal of Plantation Crops 14: \30-133.

Ohler JG (1964) Coconut, Tree oflife. Rome. Food and AgricultureOrganization.

Petch T ( 1906) Diseases ofthe coconut palm. Tropical Agriculturist27:489-491.

Quillec G, Renard JL (1984) Phytophlhora rot of coconut.Oleagineux 39:143-145.

Renard JL (1989) Le Hartrot du cocotier: caracterisation et moyensdu lutle. Oleaginellx 44:475-484.

Warwick DRN, Bezerra APT (1992) Possible root tnmsmission ofthe red ring nematode (Rhadinaphelenchus cocophilus) to coconutpalm. Plant Disease 76:809-811.

Warwick DRN. Ferreira I1'vfS,Melo EEl' (2004) Ocorrencia deresinose do estipe do coqueiro provocada pOI'Owlara paradoxaem Sergipe. Fitopatologia Brasileira 29 (SupL):413. .'

Received J2 ,Hatch 2008 - Accepted 20 Marell 2009 - TPP 7103Associate £elitor: Robert HI Barreto

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