Ramulariopsis pseudoglycines
The causal agent of areolate mildew was originally described in Alabama as Ramularia areola (Atkinson, 1890). This species was then reclassified as Ramularia gossypii, but due to the morphological similarities with the related species Ramulariopsis, the taxonomic classification was reassigned in 1993 to Ramulariopsis gossypii (Braun 1993). Later, a polyphasic approach based on multilocus DNA sequences, morphological and cultural data reveled a new species associated with areolate mildew, which was described as R. pseudoglycines (Videira et al. 2016). Areolate mildew has been reported in many cotton producing countries and the primary species causing the disease has been characterized as R. gossypii. However, the species identification has been mostly based on symptoms, signs, and morphological characteristics (da Silva et al. 2019; Videira et al. 2016). Currently, both species, R. gossypii and R. pseudoglycines, are responsible for areolate mildew and in fact, R. pseudoglycines is the most widespread causal agent in the Brazilian growing regions today (da Silva et al. 2016; Mathioni et al. 2022). Interestingly, R. pseudoglycines was reported in the US for the first time in 2023 based on morphological and molecular features from an isolate from Mississippi (Connor et al. 2023). In this project, we sequenced the genome of an isolate of R. pseudoglycines collected in Georgia (USA) in 2023, using nanopore sequencing.