Kiwifruit has been producing about 25,000 tons of cultivated area of 1,300 hectares in Jeju Island and southern coastal areas since 2017. In June 2020, a turtle shell-shaped symptom was observed in ‘Hongyang’, one of the kiwi fruit varieties, at a...
Kiwifruit has been producing about 25,000 tons of cultivated area of 1,300 hectares in Jeju Island and southern coastal areas since 2017. In June 2020, a turtle shell-shaped symptom was observed in ‘Hongyang’, one of the kiwi fruit varieties, at an orchard located in Suncheon, Jeollanam-do, South Korea. In the early stages of development, small, circular and oval spots were formed, and as the spots grew larger and larger, they changed to a cracked scab of 1 to 7 cm with a light border in the latter part. The mycological characteristics are consistent with those of Alternaria spp. The ITS, GAPDH, Alta1 and Tef1 sequences matched with A. tenuissima. Using MEGA X program, maximum likelihood analysis based on the concatenated ITS, GAPDH, Alta1 and Tef1 sequences placed the isolates within a clade comprising A. tenuissima. In order to control scab disease in kiwi fruits, triazole-based difenoconazole, a fungicide that inhibits the biosynthesis of sterols in the membrane, showed strong inhibition of mycelial growth of A. tenuissima in vitro. This scab disease on kiwi fruits has not been reported in Korea until now. Our data will help to control scab disease on kiwi fruits in Korea.