LAUSR

In 2016 season, Samsun, Amasya, Tokat, Ordu and Corum provinces in the Black Sea region of Turkey were surveyed for potato plants with wilting on the foliage, blackleg on the stem base and soft rotting. Incidence varied from 4%-60%. Infected tissue was macerated in plastic bags (Bioreba AG, Switzerland) and extract was plated on Crystal violet pectate (CVP) media incubated at 28°C. Three cavity forming strains from cv. Marabel planted in different fields of Amasya province showed the same biochemical characteristics with reference strains IFB0458, Poland (Potrykus et al., 2016) and 2187 (G-87), Israel (Tsror et al., 2009). A 420- bp PCR product typical for Dickeya sp. was amplifed with ADE1/ADE2 primers (Nassar et al., 1996). Blastn analysis of obtained partial 16S rDNA gene sequences (1382 and 1392 bp) of strains A27G3 and A37G9 (GenBank accession Nos. KY114490 and KY114491) had 100% similarity to the type strain IPO 2222T = NCPPB4479 (CP015137), isolated from potato grown in the Netherlands. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree clustered both strains in the same clade together with other D. solani strains derived from GenBank. Pathogenicity assays were performed on potato plants (cv. Marabel) by injecting 20 μl bacterial suspension (108 cfu/ml) into stems. Typical disease symptoms were observed within 5 days. Re-isolated colonies caused pitting on CVP and had the same biochemical profile with the inoculated strains. To the best of our knowledge, this study describes the first occurance of D. solani in Turkey.