First Report on Plum Pocket Caused by Taphrina deformans in South Korea

Plum pocket caused by the dimorphic ascomycetous fungi, Taphrina spp., results in unsightly malformations and crop loss. In 2016, Japanese plums (Prunus salicina Lindl.) with plum pocket symptoms were found in Gimcheon. Three isolates were collected from symptomatic P. salicina fruits and identified as Taphrina deformans based on morphological characteristics and molecular sequence analysis of including internal transcribed space (ITS) and the mitochondrial small ribosomal subunit (SSU) regions of the three isolates. Pathogenicity test on plum fruits confirmed that, the present T. deformans isolates are causal agent of plum pocket. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of plum pocket caused by T. deformans in South Korea.