A ROOT AND STALK ROT OF SOYBEANS CAUSED BY PHYTOPHTHORA MEGASPERMA DRECHSLER VAR. SOJAE VAR. NOV.

Since 1954, a destructive root and stalk rot of soybeans, identical with one reported from several of the soybean-growing areas in the United States, has been prevalent in southwestern Ontario. It is proposed that Phytophthora megasperma Drechsler var. sojae nov. var. replace P. cactorum (Lib. and Cohn) Schroet., and P. sojae Kaufmann and Gerdemann, as the more correct taxonomic designation of the causal fungus. P. megasperma var. sojae comprises strains which though indistinguishable morphologically, differ physiologically and pathologically. Artificial inoculation of varieties and of breeding lines and selections of soybeans with the causal fungus, chiefly by the highly reliable toothpick method, indicated two well-defined types of disease reaction, resistance and susceptibility. Harosoy, the variety which currently is grown most extensively in Ontario, is highly susceptible to the disease. Pathogenicity trials involving many possible wild and cultivated hosts emphasized the marked specificity of P. megasperma var. sojae to Glycine max L. Merrill. The soybean Phytophthora, having been called P. cactorum and thereby associated nomenclaturally with a representative of that species causing a root rot of sweet clover in Ontario, was found to be quite different from the sweet clover pathogen.