Abstract: In order to understand pathogens associate with mulberry rot disease,fruit with rot symptoms were collected from Hubei province in 2017,and the conventional tissue separation method was used to obtain the isolates. Healthy fruits inoculated with purified strain by mycelium plugs puncture and conidia injection both can cause diseased symptoms. Morphological identification showed that the morphological features of the strain were similar to Botrytis cinerea. The Blast search of rDNA ITS sequence of the strain showed 99% sequence identity with Botrytis cinerea and Botrytis fabae in GenBank. The specific primers were used for distinguish Botrytis cinerea and Botrytis fabae,and the construction of molecular phylogenetic tree further confirm the strain was Botrytis cinerea. The results of pathogenicity test,morphological and molecular identification indicated that the pathogen of mulberry rot in Hubei province was Botrytis cinerea.

Key words: mulberry rot, pathogenicity test, morphological identification, phylogenetic tree