Occurrence of target spot of tomato caused by Corynespora cassiicola in Sri Lanka

In February 2019, a new destructive leaf and stem spot disease was reported from commercial tomato fields in Kimbissa, Central Province, Sri Lanka. This disease resulted in significant loss of foliage where the disease severity ranged from 50-70% in the infected tomato fields. The objectives of the study were to isolate and characterize the pathogen causing the disease and confirm its pathogenicity. A fungal pathogen with cottony, grayish mycelium and cylindrical, straight, multi-septate conidia was isolated from the leaf and stem lesions on Potato Dextrose Agar PDA. Based on morphological, molecular and pathological data, the fungus was identified as Corynespora cassiicola. Re-inoculation of leaves and stems of healthy tomato plants under green house conditions produced symptoms similar to those observed in the field. Sequence was deposited in GenBank for Sri Lankan C. cassiicola strain TS-1 (Accession No.MT071510.1). A BLAST search revealed 97% sequence identity to Corynespora cassiicola in GenBank Accession No. MH780759.1 (Soybean, Brazil).