Stemphylium Pathogenicity and Foliar Disease Management
Summary
Species within the genus Stemphylium are globally significant fungal pathogens that inflict foliar blights, spots and defoliation across a wide range of crops, including lentils, pears, onions and tomatoes. These necrotrophic fungi deploy conidia to infect leaf tissues, often following periods of high humidity and moderate temperatures. The lifestyle of certain species can switch between saprophytic colonisation of debris and aggressive necrosis of living tissue, complicating disease cycles. Epidemics frequently originate from overwintering structures such as pseudothecia on crop residues, which release ascospores in spring. Management of Stemphylium diseases integrates cultural practices—crop rotation, sanitation and pruning—with targeted fungicide applications, resistant cultivars and emerging biological control agents. Advances in rapid inoculum production protocols support high-throughput screening for host resistance, while an improved understanding of pathogen population structure and environmental thresholds underpins predictive modelling. The global impact of Stemphylium on yield and quality demands coordinated research into integrated disease management strategies that reconcile efficacy, sustainability and regulatory constraints.
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Stemphylium Pathogenicity and Foliar Disease Management publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in stemphylium pathogenicity and foliar disease management across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Conidia: Asexual spores produced by fungi that serve as primary agents of foliar infection.
Pseudothecia: Overwintering sexual structures in which ascospores mature and later disseminate to initiate new infections.
Necrotroph: A pathogen that kills host cells and derives nutrients from the resulting dead tissue.
Integrated Disease Management (IDM): A coordinated strategy combining cultural, chemical, genetic and biological controls to suppress plant diseases sustainably.
References
- Optimization of inoculum production of Stemphylium botryosum for large-scale resistance screening of lentils. Plant Methods (2024).
- A New Source of Inoculum for Stemphylium vesicarium: Consequences for the Management of Brown Spot of Pear. Agronomy (2024).
- Characterization of autochthone biological control agents for pear protection against the brown spot of pear disease caused by Stemphylium vesicarium. Journal of Plant Pathology (2024).
- Current Knowledge on Pathogenicity and Management of Stemphylium botryosum in Lentils (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris Medik). Pathogens (2019).
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