The Grass Seed Pathogen Pyrenophora Semeniperda as a Biocontrol Agent for Annual Brome Grasses

Pyrenophora semeniperda’s current reported distribution worldwide is mainly temperate grasslands and winter cereal growing regions. Previous reports in Europe and Asia were not known, and strong doubt has been expressed that it occurs in the Old World. However, it has been discovered in Turkey and Greece. Using Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) for genetic identification, P. semeniperda’s existence in both Europe and Asia has been confirmed. Technical Note Pyrenophora semeniperda (Brittlebank and Adam) Shoemaker (anamorph Drechslera campanulata (Lev.) Sutton) is a generalist plant pathogen that can cause leaf spot disease and seed rot of annual and perennial grasses. It has also been found to infect several dicotyledonous species. Pyrenophora semeniperda is a weak pathogen when it infects the leaves or stems of grasses (Medd and Jones 1992), but shows potential to be a major pathogen of seeds. Evidence of seed infection is easily observed from the development of macroscopic fungal stromata on the seed (Meyer et al. 2007) (Fig. 1). We have observed that seed mortality due to P. semeniperda is inversely correlated with