Abstract
Severe leaf spot disease was observed on Aloe vera plants in the winters of 2011 and 2012
during a survey of various nurseries of Gwalior, India. Irregular, sunken, dark creamish
brown spots having reddish brown margin were noticed on both surfaces of the leaves. The
causal organism was consistently isolated from symptomatic leaves on potato dextrose agar
media (PDA). A total 59 isolates of fungi were recovered from diseased A. vera leaves, and
37 isolates were identified as belonging to the genus Fusarium. On the basis of morphological
characteristics and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of rDNA amplified using
the primers ITS4/ITS5 the pathogen was identified as Fusarium proliferatum (Matsushima)
Nirenberg and pathogenicity of the isolate was confirmed by using Koch’s postulates. To
the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of leaf spot disease caused by Fusarium
proliferatum on A. vera plants in India.
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