Cadophora luteo-olivacea isolated from apple ( Malus domestica ) fruit with post-harvest side rot symptoms in northern Italy

Recently, Cadophora luteo-olivacea has been reported as a post-harvest pathogen of side rot of apple ( Malus domestica ) in Latvia, and of pear ( Pyrus communis ) in Italy and the Netherlands. In 2018 and 2019, in South Tyrol (northern Italy) 11 fungal cultures, identified as C. luteo-olivacea based on ITS (internal transcribed spacer region) sequence data, were obtained from apple fruit displaying post-harvest side rot symptoms. The fruit were sampled in packinghouses representing different apple growing areas of South Tyrol. For a more accurate taxonomic assignment, two additional molecular genetic loci, β -tubulin (TUB2) and translation elongation factor 1 α (TEF-1 α ), of seven isolates were amplified and sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis based on multi-locus DNA sequence data confirmed that isolates from apple fruit with side rot symptoms indeed represented C. luteo-olivacea . A pathogenicity test performed on apple fruit of ‘Golden Delicious’ confirmed the virulence of a representative isolate. So far, C. luteo-olivacea represents a minor post-harvest pathogen of apple but considering the losses that this fungus can cause to other crops, the awareness about this potential apple disease should be raised.