First report of Leveillula Taurica causing powdery mildew on Fenugreek in Egypt

During routine field surveys in February 2023, in a commercial field located in Hegazah village, Qus, Qena governorate, Egypt (25°50’49"N 32°49’33"E), powdery mildew symptoms were observed on leaves of a local cultivar of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.). Microscopic characterization showed that conidiophores were cylindrical, hyaline, straight, erect to bent, forming conidia singly, primary conidia were apically narrowed, lanceolate, obtuse to pointed measuring, secondary conidia were ellipsoid or cylindrical, measuring. Germ tubes were close to the base. BLASTn results showed 100% similarity with the submitted sequences of Leveillula taurica for ITS rDNA, the obtained phylogenetic tree through the maximum likelihood method confirmed the BLASTn results. Morphological and molecular approaches confirmed the identity of Leveillula taurica (Lév.) G. Arnaud. The obtained ITS rDNA sequence was deposited in NCBI GenBank (OR472546). Pathogenicity tests were conducted, and Koch’s postulates were fulfilled with the fungus. To our knowledge, this is the first report of powdery mildew caused by L. taurica (Lév.) G. Arnaud. on fenugreek in Egypt.