Identification of the pathogen causing downy mildew on pepper
Pepper(Capsicum annuum L.),belonging to the Solanaceae family,is an economically important vegetable crop in China.In April 2021,severe downy mildew-like symptoms were observed on pepper in Ningx-iang County,Changsha City,Hunan Province.The diseased pepper plants exhibited large,interveinal chlorotic lesions on the adaxial surface of the leaves,which coalesced and turned necrotic as disease progressed.Mean-while,white to gray mycelia could be seen on the abaxial side.Based on morphological characteristics,rDNA-ITS and cox2 sequence analysis,and the result of pathogenicity test,the pathogen was identified as Peronospora capsici.This is the first report of downy mildew caused by P.capsici on pepper in Hunan Province,China,and the sequence information of P.capsici was for the first time deposited in the NCBI nucleotide database.