A Diagnostic Guide to <i>Phytopythium helicoides</i> and <i>Phytopythium vexans</i> Causing Root and Crown Rot Diseases
Bhawana Ghimire, Fulya Baysal-Gurel
Abstract
Phytopythium vexans and Phytopythium helicoides are important waterborne plant pathogens causing root and crown rot disease in plants from different families ( P. vexans = 19 and P. helicoides = 18) worldwide. The main objective of this diagnostic guide is to provide detailed information about symptoms and signs of root and crown rot disease, host range, geographic distribution, pathogen isolation, conventional and molecular identification, storage, and pathogenicity testing, and present a reliable zoospore production procedure for these pathogens. This guide is aimed at facilitating the detection and identification of these pathogens in the field and laboratory, and the zoospore production procedure is anticipated to help in further investigations and development of different management strategies. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .