Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is an important forage crop with high nutrition for animal feed. In May 2016, a disease showing brown root rot was observed on alfalfa collected from several farms in Tongliao City (44°17' N; 121°29' E), Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. The incidence of brown root rot was approximately 50 to 70% in the 2-year-old alfalfa field. Infected alfalfa exhibited varying degrees of decay in the tap root. Symptomatic roots were cut into 0.5-cm pieces, surface disinfected with 70% ethanol for 5 s and 0.1% HgCl2 for 35 s, then rinsed with sterilize distilled water three times, and placed onto potato dextrose agar (PDA) at 26°C in the dark. After 5 days, hyphal tips of the growing colonies were transferred onto PDA plates for purification. Forty-four isolates belonging to five fungal species were obtained from 20 diseased root samples. Six of the isolates resembled the genus Plectosphaerella. Colonies of these isolates were white to cream in color with sparse aerial mycelium, and then gradually became salmon pink with slimy or moist mycelium. The hyphae were transparent and branched. Colonies produced numerous hyphal coils with conidiophores. Conidiogenous cells and conidia were both hyaline, solitary, and smooth. Conidia were 4 to 8.5 ×1.2 to 4.8 µm (n= 100), 0 to 1 septum, elliptical and ovoid, and aggregating to form a head (Palm et al. 1995). According to these morphological characteristics, the fungus was identified as P. cucumerina (Lindf.) (Carlucci et al. 2012). To confirm the identification, the genomic DNA of two representative isolates was extracted and their internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was amplified and sequenced with the primer pair ITS1/ITS4 (White et al. 1990). The ITS sequences of the two isolates were deposited in GenBank (acc. nos. MN915126 and MN915127). The two ITS sequences showed 99 to 100% identical to known P. cucumerina strains CBS 131739 (acc. no. KY662258.1) (Su et al. 2017) and MP313 (acc. no. KC756835.1) from alfalfa in China (Wen et al. 2015). To test for pathogenicity, a set of 15 alfalfa seedlings (cv. Aohan) were root-dipped in the conidial suspension of one of the isolates (1×105 conidia /ml) prepared from 7-day-old cultures on PDA. Inoculated seedlings were transplanted in three pots (10×15 cm) with sterilized nursery soil. Another set of five alfalfa seedlings inoculated with sterile water only served as the controls. Treated alfalfa seedlings were maintained in a greenhouse at 25°C to 28°C under a 12-h photoperiod. After 25 days, the roots of all inoculated plants showed brown lesions. P. cucumerina was reisolated from symptomatic tissue. No symptoms were observed on the control plants. P. cucumerina was previously reported on alfalfa in the fields of Huanxi Country (36°20' N; 107°21'), Gansu Province, China (Wen et al. 2015). To our knowledge, this is the first report of P. cucumerina causing root rot of alfalfa in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. This disease may cause serious economic losses in the region. It is needed to develop effective management strategies for control of this disease.

In August 2014, a disease caused severe losses in a 2.5-ha field on sorghum plant in Farmland of Inner-Mongolia University for the Nationalities at Tongliao City of Inner-Mongolia, Northeast China. Symptoms were observed on almost every leaf of 13 sorghum varieties. Leaf lesions were irregular short columnar, long 3-7 mm long, worth 2-4 mm wide, and light gray with distinct dark brownish red borders was observed around leaf lesions under humid conditions. Six fungal strains were isolated from disease leaves of 6 sorghum varieties, due to there are same disease symptoms in all 13 varieties by plating surface-sterilized (1% NaOCl) sections of symptomatic leaf tissue onto potato dextrose agar (PDA). A dark olive color on both sides, with loose, cottony mycelium was observed on the surface of cultures. Only a few of conidia were produced on PDA medium. Conidiophores were brown, septate, branched or unbranched and ranged from 16.3 to 96.6 μm. Conidia were obclavate to obpyriform with a conical or cylindrical s...

Fangfeng (Saposhnikovia divaricata) is a perennial plant belonging to the Umbelliferae family, and is widely cultivated as a traditional Chinese medicine plant used to treat various diseases in northern China. In August 2022, a widespread leaf spot disease emerged on the Fangfeng leaves across a 2.5-acre farmland located in the Naiman District of Tongliao City, China ( 44°17' N; 121°29' E), where 5,000 acres of Fangfeng had been cultivated. The incidence of the disease approached 100% in the two-year-old Fangfeng crops within the specific fields. Small, pale yellow spots were observed on the affected leaves of the Fangfeng plant. Diseased tissue pieces (5 mm) from symptomatic leaves were sterilized in 75% ethanol for 5 s and 1% NaClO for 25 s, then rinsed three times with sterilized distilled water and placed on potato dextrose agar (PDA) at 26°C in the dark for 7 days. Thirty-three isolates were obtained from 11 diseased leaf samples, representing one fungal species. The cultures had a dark olive color on both sides, accompanied by the presence of loose, cottony mycelium on the surface (Simmons, 1992). The conidiophores were light brown with clear separation, solitary or in clusters and ranged from 5.5 to 44.4 μm. Conidia are obpyriform with a cylindrical beak ( 0 to 22 µm in length) in short chains on Potato Carrot Agar (PCA). Conidia averaged 15.3 × 47.4μm with one to five transverse septa and zero or two occasional longitudinal septa. It is similar to those described as Alternaria sp. based on morphological characteristics (Simmons, 2007). The ITS, TEF1 and RPB2 gene fragments of isolates FFYB2 and FFYB4 were amplified with the primer pairs ITS5/ITS4, EF1-728F/EF1-986R and RPB2-5F/RPB2-7cR (White et al, 1990; Carbone and Kohn, 1999; Berbee et al., 1999; Liu et al., 1999) and submitted to GenBank (ITS, PP976058 and PP976059; TEF, PQ096003 and PQ096004; RPB2, PQ120838 and PQ120839). The three gene sequences ITS+ TEF1+ RPB2 were aligned in Clustal X 1.83 with equal weight and a phylogenetic tree was constructed in Mega 7.0.26 software (He et al., 2021). Finally, it was identified as A. alternata based on morphological and molecular characteristics. 36 Fangfeng leaves from six 8-month-old plants were utilized to assess the pathogenicity of the FFYB2 isolate, encompassing the control. All of PDA plugs (0.5 cm in diameter) colonized with the isolate and without the isolate were placed on the pinholes by a sterilized needle of the Fangfeng leaf surface sterilized with 75% alcohol-tampon, then removed after 48 h. On the fifth day, brown lesions (5 mm) appeared on 15 out of 18 Fangfeng leaves inoculated. No lesions were observed on 18 control leaves inoculated with PDA plugs. The fungi were re-isolated from the new lesions after a 7-day post-inoculation period, utilizing the aforementioned method, and their morphology was found to be identical to that of Alternaria sp.. Although A. divaricata was previously identified as a pathogen in Badong County (30°28'N; 110°29'E) of Yichang City, Hebei Province, China (He et al., 2021), the research results were deficient in providing details on the severity, symptoms, pathogenicity tests of the disease, and other relevant aspects. To our knowledge, this is the first report of A. alternata causing Fangfeng leaf spot in China. Fangfeng Alternaria leaf spot has caused severe economic losses in the region. Effective management strategies for this disease were urgently needed.

Based on the field investigations in the past and all published literatures, we studied the faunal composition and distributional pattern of Miridae (Hemiptera) from the Hulun Buir City, Inner Mongolia of China. In total, 122 species, which belonging to 4 subfamilies 51 genera were recorded in there. In general, Miridae species were concentrated in the western areas of Hulun Buir City; where mainly was the Hulun Buir Grassland. From each subfamily distributional situation, Mirinae was distributed the most extensive, relatively the most dispersed; followed by Orthotylinae. The distribution of Phylinae was showed two transverse bands. And Deraeocorinae was the sparsest. The similarity coefficient of NDS and WDS is the highest (0.6143), which performance for medium similarity. And rest any two subregions all showed medium not similarity. The natural environment (climate, soil type, vegetation type), human disturbance and physiological characteristics of this family is likely influences the species composition and distribution.