Population Structure and the Relationship Between Pathogenic and Nonpathogenic Strains of<i>Fusarium oxysporum</i>

Abstract

One hundred isolates of Fusarium oxysporum were collected from soil with a history of Fusarium wilt of muskmelon in a 35 m 2 area within an agricultural field in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Twenty-nine strains from this collection, each representing a different vegetative compatibility group, were found to be nonpathogenic to muskmelon in greenhouse seedling tests. Each of these 29 strains was examined for polymorphisms in mitochondrial (mt) DNA by probing restriction digests of total DNA with cloned fragments from the mt genome of F. oxysporum f. sp. melonis (...)