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Home → Publications → National Nursery Proceedings → 1998 → Contamination of Pine Seeds by the Pitch Canker Fungus

Contamination of Pine Seeds by the Pitch Canker Fungus

The pitch canker fungus, Fusarium subglutinans f. sp. phi, has been identified as a significant problem in many pine seed orchards and nurseries in the South. The fungus causes strobilus mortality, seed deterioration, and cankers on the main stem, branches, and shoots of pines (Dwinell and others 1985). The pitch canker fungus causes damping-off (Blakeslee 1980) and stem cankers on seedlings in southern pine nurseries (Barnard and Blakeslee 1980). Contaminated seeds may be a source of inoculum for diseases in nurseries caused by E subglutinans f. sp. phi. Microscopic examination may reveal the presences of hyphae throughout these seed (Barrows-Broaddus 1987. Often, however, evidence of internal infection is not apparent in radiographs of seeds from which the fungus is isolated. This may be due to its confinement to the outer seed coat, or because the disease is in its initial stages of development.


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Author(s): L. D. Dwinnel, Stephen W. Fraedrich

Publication: National Nursery Proceedings - 1998

Event: Southern Forest Nursery Association Meeting
1998 - Lafayette, LA