Symptoms and fungi associated with declining mature grapevine plants in northeast Spain

A field survey was carried out in Catalonia (northeast Spain) to characterize the decline of mature grapevines. The relationships of both external and internal symptoms of diseased plants and their associated mycoflora were studied. Co-occurrence of different internal dis-ease symptoms was frequently observed, since 44% of the sampled plants had wood lesions commonly associated with at least two of the following decline diseases: eutypiose, black dead arm or esca. The results obtained suggest that apoplexy might not be associated only with escaaffected plants, since 60% of surveyed vines showing apoplexy showed also V-shaped necroses, which are commonly associated with eutypiose and black dead arm, and 20% were exclusively affected by V-shaped necroses. An experiment was conducted to establish the pathogenicity of the most representative fungi isolated from diseased tissues of declining plants, by artificially inoculating 1-year-old vines of cvs Macabeo and Tempranillo. As indicated by the extension of the vascular lesions, pathogenicity was confirmed for most of the species tested, namely Botryosphaeria dothidea, Diplodia seriata, Eutypa lata, Neofusicoccum luteum, N. parvum and Phaeomoniella chlamydospora.