Occurrence of Strawberry Scab Caused by Cladosporium herbarum in Korea

A black scab was observed on strawberry(Fragaria ananassa) in plastic film houses around Jinju area during the winter of 2000. The disease started from leaves then moved to calyx and runner. At the beginning, the infected area started with small dark brown spots then gradually expanded. The pathogenic fungus was purely isolated from the diseased leaves, calyx and runner. The fungus was inoculated to test Koch's postulates and proved to be the causal agent of the disease. The isolated fungus grew readily on potato dextrose agar, forming dark green to dark gray colonies. The optimum temperature for mycelial growth was about $25^{\circ}C$. The diameter of growing hyphae was $3.8{\sim}5.6{\mu}m$. Conidia were ellipsoidal, ovoid or subspherical, mostly one-celled but occasionally septate. The size of conidia were $4.1{\sim}11.7{\times}3.8{\sim}5.3$ 1-cell, $9.3{\sim}18.8{\times}4.0{\sim}7.4{\mu}m$ 2-cell and formed in long branched chains on the erected conidiophores which were dark brown and variable in length between $28.8{\sim}236.2{\times}3.0{\sim}6.2{\mu}m$ in size. The fungus was identified as Cladosporium herbarum on the basis of its morphological characteristics. The black scab disease of strawberry caused by C. herbarum has not been reported in Korea previously.