RT Journal
T1 GIS-BASED SPATIAL ASSESSMENT AND MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF EARLY BLIGHT (Alternaria solani) IN POTATO-GROWING REGIONS OF PUNJAB, PAKISTAN
A1 Mohammad Mohsin Alam
A1 Rashida Perveen
JF Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences
JO JAPS
SN 1018-7081
VO 37
IS 1
YR 2027
FD 2027
DO DOI https://doi.org/10.36899/JAPS.2027.1.0008
AB <p style="text-align: justify;">Potato early blight, caused by the necrotrophic fungus <em>Alternaria solani</em>, is one of the most economically significant foliar diseases of potato worldwide, causing yield losses of up to 50% under favorable epidemic conditions. In Pakistan, especially in Punjab province, systematic data on the diversity of <em>A. solani</em> and spatial disease distribution are scarce. This study was designed to quantify disease incidence, prevalence, and plant mortality across 40 sites in four major potato-producing districts of Punjab, and to characterize <em>A. solani</em> isolates through morphological, microscopic, and ITS-based molecular analysis. Spatial analysis identified Okara and Khanewal as high-risk hotspots, with site-level disease incidence ranging from 21% to 68%, disease prevalence up to 62%, and plant mortality up to 64%. District-level means showed Okara with the highest disease incidence (56.7%), prevalence (54.8%), and mortality (51.8%), while Sahiwal recorded the lowest values across all three parameters. Morphological and microscopic examinations revealed variation among isolates in colony and conidial characteristics. According to the sequence analysis by the information technology service (ITS), the similarity between the sequence and reference sequences in the NCBI database was 99.1-99.8%. The results obtained along with the morphological and microscopic features helped in the identification of the studied isolates as <em>A. solani.</em> This is the first GIS-based epidemiological and molecular study of potato early blight in key potato-growing districts of Punjab, providing a spatially explicit framework for disease surveillance and management.</p>
K1 GIS-based Mapping; Early Blight of Potato; Alternaria solani; Disease Incidence; Disease Prevalence; Spatial Epidemiology; ITS Phylogenetics; Punjab Pakistan
PB Pakistan Agricultural Scientists Forum
LK https://thejaps.org.pk/AbstractView.aspx?mid=2026-JAPS-89