The Prevalence of the Fusarium Wilting Disease in Field Eggplant Cultivations in Turkey and the Virulence of the Isolates

Fusarium wilt disease causes economical yield losses in eggplant cultivation. prevalence and severity of fusarium wilting disease in antalya, mersin and hatay in mediterranean region, izmir, manisa, muğla and aydın in aegean region, bursa in marmara region, samsun in black sea region, and şanlıurfa and diyarbakır in southeastern anatolia region where field cultivations of eggplant are common were determined during 2010 and 2011. highest disease prevalence for both survey years were 50% in adana and bursa, which are followed by antalya, samsun and mersin. lowest prevalence was recorded in diyarbakır. according to the results of the macroscopic and microscopic studies and symptomatological evaluations of pathogenicity experiments, a total of 381 of the isolates are determined to be fusarium oxysporum f. sp. melongenae (fomg). the virulence groups were determined through the percentage of the disease severity values of the fomg isolates obtained throughout turkey, and 122 of these isolates were highly virulent (90-100%), 175 of them were virulent (80-89%), 62 of them are moderate-virulent (70-79%) and 22 of them were determined to be low virulent (60-69%).