ORIGINAL ARTICLE Characterization of Fusarium avenaceum from faba bean (Vicia faba) in Iran, genetic diversity, aggressiveness, and cultivar evaluation Naghmeh Afshari 1 & Roghayeh Hemmati 1 & Fatemeh Sheikh 2 Received: 20 October 2018 /Accepted: 3 September 2019 # Società Italiana di Patologia Vegetale (S.I.Pa.V.) 2019 Abstract Fusarium avenaceum is an important Fusarium species and under mild climate, this fungus is one of the most important pathogenic species especially on grains and legumes. In this study, the genetic diversity and pathogenicity of this pathogen on faba bean, cultivar Barakat, was investigated under greenhouse conditions. The reaction of six cultivars of faba including Boroujerdi brown, Boroujerdi red, Balochi, Syria masses, Luzde otono and Histal against the pathogen was also investigated. Samples were collected during the spring of 2015 from faba bean fields in Tarom County. After isolation and purification of fungal isolates, 30 isolates of F. avenaceum were obtained. To survey the genetic diversity, two RAPD primers (P 1 and UBC 77 ) and three ISSR primers ((GACA) 4 , (GTG) 5 , (AAGC) 4 ) were applied to DNA fingerprinting, and data analysis was performed in NTSYSpc-2.02e. The results showed relatively high genetic diversity among the isolates. Greenhouse test using two methods, infected wheat grains, and agar layer method was conducted as completely randomized design. Analysis of variance and Duncan multiple range tests were performed by SAS ver. 9.4. According to the results of infected wheat grains method, there was the significant difference among the isolates regarding their effects on disease percentage, shoot length, foliar dry and wet weight, but root length and root dry and wet weight. In agar layer method there was a significant difference among the isolates on disease percentage and root length (P ≤ 0.05). The results of the analysis of variance for cultivar reaction data indicated no significant difference in reaction among different cultivars. Keywords Clonal lineage . Faba bean cultivars . Fusarium avenaceum . Fusarium rot . Pathogenicity Introduction Faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is a main pulse crop and is cultivated worldwide in cropping systems. It is a valuable source of protein for food and livestock feed, which originated from the Near East (Jensen et al. 2010). Faba bean has a symbiotic relationship with species of Rhizobacteria forming the root nodules. The capabil- ity of nitrogen-fixing eliminates the need of using nitrogen fer- tilizers, which reduces the cost of input. Since they enrich the soil with nitrogen, faba bean, as well as other beans, are appro- priate for subsequent crops (Conner et al. 2012). In Iran, faba bean is grown in different regions especially in the north of the country. Area of about 20,000 ha of agri- cultural fields in Iran is under cultivation of this pulse crop. Root and foot rot of faba bean is regarded as a major disease of this crop. A different variation of fungal species has been reported as rot causing agents on faba bean including Fusarium spp., Rhizoctonia solani , Phytophthora megasperma, Aphanomyces euteiches , Macrophomina phaseolina and Pythium spp. among them Fusarium spp. have been recorded predominantly with many researchers around the world (Platford and Bernier 1973; Azimi et al. 2005; Taheri et al. 2012; Hemmati and Mehrabi 2014). * Roghayeh Hemmati rhemati@znu.ac.ir Naghmeh Afshari afshari.naghmeh@znu.ac.ir Fatemeh Sheikh sheikhfatemeh@yahoo.com 1 Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zanjan, Zanjan 38791-45371, Iran 2 Research and Education Center, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Gorgan, Iran Journal of Plant Pathology https://doi.org/10.1007/s42161-019-00399-z