Identification and separation of Pratylenchus from root of Festuca elata

Festuca elata is one of turfgrass species with longer green period and is very important in the construction of ecological environment. However, some diseases frequently occur and bring heavy economical loss to the lawn with the extended of tall fescue growing regions. In the present paper, an investigation about the reasons of dead patches in tall fescue lawn in Beijing's Gaoliying Town suggested that the predominant parasitic nematodes of tall fescue's rhizosphere were the primary cause of mortality. The parasitic nematodes isolated from tall fescue using the Behrman funnel method were short body nematodes with over 100 per 100 mL soil samples of population density. The parasitic nematodes were further identified as Pratylenchus scribneri based on morphology characteristics including esophagus, lip annulus, spermatheca, stylet length and V value. The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of rDNA was amplified from genomic DNA and sequenced. The sequence had 93% similarity with the species of P. agilis and P. scribneri in Genebank which confirmed the nematode was P. scribneri. To best of our knowledge, this is the first report that P. scribneri cause tall fescue patchy disease in China.