Identification, Morphological Characterization and Distribution of Fusarium species in Moroccan Wheat

Wheat Fusarium root rot is a common worldwide disease that occurs in a wide range of environmental and temperature conditions. Understanding morphological and molecular variations, as well as the geographic distribution of the fungi responsible is very important for a better disease control. Seventy-two Fusarium isolates were recovered from infected wheat plants collected in seven wheat production regions of Morocco. Five different species of Fusarium were isolated: F. avenaceum, F. culmorum, F. sambucinum, F. equiseti, and F. graminearum. For laboratory cultures, the potato dextrose agar is commonly used and gives good results for growth rate and morphological typical structures of the pathogen. In this study, Malt-extract and Potato dextrose Agar media were tested. The latter had shown higher growth rate for most of the Fusarium species and diverse morphological structures and pigmentations. The most common species in the regions of study is F. culmorum (59.72%), present in all of the studied areas followed by F. equiseti (11.11 %) and F. graminearum (8.33%) which were mainly restricted to North-Western Morocco, while F. sambicunum and F. avenaceum, with a percentage of 1.39% each, were only found in Central-Morocco.