Colletotrichum Cereale

Beginning in the 1990s, anthracnose disease caused by the haploid fungus Colletotrichum cereale Manns (sensu lato Crouch, Clarke and Hillman) emerged as one of the most destructive diseases of turf-type grasses maintained as golf course greens in the United States and Canada. Since that time, the incidence, severity and geographic range of the disease greatly expanded. Although anthracnose disease ascribed to C. cereale was first demonstrated in association with cereals and grasses of the Pooideae subfamily in 1908 (Selby, Manns, 1909), the fungus was deemed a trivial pathogen throughout the next seven decades. Reports of anthracnose disease outbreaks were recorded during the course of the 20th century, with the disease making transient appearances in turfgrass, cereal rye, wheat, oats, and orchard grass in the United States, England, Brazil and South Africa, with varying degrees of severity. Between 1914 through 2006, because of extreme morphological similarity, C. cereale was considered conspecific with C. graminicola, an important pathogen of corn. Notwithstanding these modest origins, C. cereale is now confirmed as the causal agent of anthracnose outbreaks on golf courses throughout North America, presenting one of the most significant challenges to the health of Poa annua (annual bluegrass) and, increasingly, Agrostis stolonifera (creeping bentgrass) turfgrasses. Non-pathogenic strains of C. cereale have been isolated from asymptomatic cool-season (C3) prairie grasses (including Dactylis glomerata, Elymus virginicanus, E. canadensis and Bromus inermis) and wheat crops (Triticum aestivum) (Crouch et al., 2006).