Microbial community composition associated with potato plants displaying early dying syndrome
Potato Early Dying disease (PED) causes premature senescence and rapid demise in potato plants. The severe symptoms of PED, compared to potato wilt caused by Verticillium species, result from the combined effects of various pathogens, including root-lesion nematodes, other fungi such as Colletotrichum and Fusarium, and soft-rot bacteria. To understand the microbiome responsible for PED, soil and stem samples from healthy-looking and diseased-looking plants were analyzed using amplicon-targeted next-generation sequencing. Samples were collected from four locations in New Bruns-wick, Canada, from fields previously rotated with barley or oat.