AUTHOR=Bag Tusar Kanti , Dutta Pranab , Hubballi Manjunath , Kaur Ravpreet , Mahanta Madhusmita , Chakraborty Ardhendu , Das Gitasree , Kataky Madhusmita , Waghunde Rajesh 

TITLE=Destructive Phytophthora on orchids: current knowledge and future perspectives

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=14

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1139811

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2023.1139811

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<p>Anton de Bary first coined the genus, <italic>Phytophthora</italic>, which means “plant destroyer”, viewing its devastating nature on potatoes. Globally plants have faced enormous threat from <italic>Phytophthora</italic> since its occurrence. In fact, a century ago, <italic>Phytophthora</italic><italic>palmivora</italic> was first reported on Dendrobium maccarthiae in Sri Lanka. Since then, members of beautiful flowering crops of the family Orchidaceae facing the destructive threat of <italic>Phytophthora</italic>. Several <italic>Phytophthora</italic> species have been recorded to infect orchids with economic loss worldwide. To date, orchids are attacked by 12 species of <italic>Phytophthora</italic>. Five <italic>Phytophthora</italic> species (<italic>P. palmivora, P. nicotianae, P. cactorum, P. multivesiculata, P. meadii</italic>) are the major pathogenic Oomycetous Chromista” rather than true fungi frequently occurred on Orchidaceae. <italic>Phytophthora palmivora</italic> (having ~32 orchid host genera in 15 countries), <italic>Phytophthora nicotianae</italic> (having ~15 orchid host genera in 16 countries), <italic>Phytophthora cactorum</italic> (having ~43 orchid host genera in 6 countries), <italic>Phytophthora multivesiculata</italic> (having 2 orchid host genera in 5 countries) and <italic>Phytophthora capsici</italic> (having 2 orchid host genera in all Vanilla growing countries) are potential destroyers of Orchidaceae. Most of them are water loving Oomycetes cause disease in moist environments (&gt; 80% RH) at 16–28°C. In artificially constructed orchidaria, anthropogenic factors are mostly contributed to the dissemination <italic>Phytophthora</italic> diseases in addition to many other factors. Water management, clean cultivation, and agro-chemicals are the major options for effective management of orchid <italic>Phytophthora</italic>, as the eco-friendly management options like development of resistant hybrids/cultivars, biological disease management, transgenic approaches, RNAi technology remained in the infant stage. In this review, we intended to highlight the insight of <italic>Phytophthora</italic> diseases associated with the orchid disease with reference to the historical aspect of the diseases, symptoms and signs, the pathogens, taxonomy, geographic distribution, host range within the Orchidaceae, pathogen identification, molecular diagnostics, mating types and races, management options and strategies and future perspectives.</p>