New Threat to Lemon Cypress (Cupressus Macrocarpa Cv. Goldcrest) in Turkey: Seiridium Cardinale

Abstract

Lemon cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa cv. Goldcrest) is a coniferous Cuppressaceae tree and is popular in urban landscapes of Turkey. In July 2021, dark-brown elongated bark lesions and resin exuding cracks with die-back symptoms were observed on the main stem of young C. macrocarpa cv. Goldcrest trees in a private house garden in the central district of Çanakkale Province of Turkey. Fungal isolations made from the margin of cankers of trees consistently yielded flat colonies with dense floccose aerial mycelium that were first off-white and grayish olive-green in some parts or in older cultures. Based on the morphological characteristics of obtained isolates, molecular analyses of the ITS rDNA region of a representative isolate, and pathogenicity tests on 4-year-old C. macrocarpa cv. Goldcrest plants, the causal agent was identified as Seiridium cardinale (Wagener) Sutton & Gibson. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first report of S. cardinale causing canker on C. macrocarpa in Turkey.