Three species of Fusarium involved in the dry rot of taro (Colocasia esculenta) in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan

In 2018 and 2019, taro (Colocasia esculenta) plants presenting symptoms including a reddish-brown dry rot of the corms and wilting of the leaves were found in several fields in Kagoshima, Japan. Fusarium solani, F. proliferatum and F. oxysporum were isolated and identified based on morphological and molecular characteristics. Among the three fungal species F. solani was the most frequently found. We inoculated taro cv. Dotare corms with representative isolates of each species, and all three isolates reproduced the original symptoms. This is the first report of F. proliferatum as a causal agent of taro dry rot in Japan.