Identification, incidence and characterization of Fusarium proliferatum on ornamental palms in Spain J. Armengol 1 , A. Moretti 2 , G. Perrone 2 , A. Vicent 1 , J.A. Bengoechea 1 and J. Garcı´a-Jime´ nez 1 1 Instituto Agroforestal Mediterra ´neo, Universidad Polite´cnica de Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain; (Phone: +34-96-3879254; Fax: +34-96-3879269; E-mail: jarmengo@eaf.upv.es); 2 Institute of Sciences of Food Production, C.N.R., Via Amendola, 122/0, 70126 Bari, Italy Accepted 11 February 2005 Key words: Chamaerops, Liseola section, mycotoxins, Phoenix, Trachycarpus, Washingtonia Abstract During a survey conducted from 1998 to 2002, Fusarium proliferatum was found associated with young and adult palms belonging to the genera Chamaerops, Phoenix, Trachycarpus and Washingtonia showing symptoms of wilt and dieback. The fertility and toxicological profile of 36 strains representing different locations and hosts were studied. All of them except two, which were infertile, belonged to mating pop- ulation D. Both mating types (MATD-1 and MATD-2) were isolated from the same host species, showing a high potential of genetic recombination in the field. Additionally, eight strains were fertile once crossed as female. Toxin analysis showed differences in the ability of strains to produce fumonisin B 1 , moniliformin, beauvericin, fusaric acid and fusaproliferin. Only 17 of them produced all the toxins analyzed. Pathoge- nicity tests were conducted on Phoenix dactylifera and P. canariensis using nine F. proliferatum Spanish strains and two reference strains from Saudi Arabia. Eight months after inoculation all strains caused disease, with palms showing lesions on the bases of leaves and development of wilt symptoms similar to those originally observed in affected plants. This is the first report on the occurrence of F. proliferatum on P. dactylifera in Spain and also the first report of this pathogen on C. humilis, P. canariensis, P. reclinata, T. fortunei, W. filifera and W. robusta. Introduction Palms are one of the most important ornamental crops in Spain, which annually produces approx- imately 2 million plants with a considerable export to European markets. Phoenix canariensis (1.2 million plants) is the predominant species, fol- lowed by other species such as P. dactylifera, P. reclinata, Washingtonia filifera, W. robusta, Chamaerops humilis and Trachycarpus fortunei. During a survey conducted from 1998 to 2002, a high number of young and adult palms belonging to the genera Chamaerops, Phoenix, Trachycarpus and Washingtonia showing symptoms of wilt and dieback were detected. Isolations from the crown area, the bases of leaves and vascular fragments of affected plants yielded primarily Fusarium strains. While in some locations Fusarium strains obtained from P. canariensis were identified as F. oxysporum f.sp. canariensis (Olmo et al., 2001; Abad et al., 2002) based on specific molecular techniques de- scribed by Fernandez et al. (1998) and Plyler et al. (1999), most of the strains were identified as F. proliferatum. Fusarium proliferatum has recently been de- scribed as the causal agent of wilt and dieback of date palms in Arabia Saudi (Abdalla et al., 2000) and as the agent of blight on majesty palm European Journal of Plant Pathology (2005) 112: 123–131 Ó Springer 2005 DOI: 10.1007/s10658-005-2552-6