First Report of the Soybean Cyst Nematode, Heterodera glycines, on Soybean in Zhejiang, Eastern China

The soybean cyst nematode (SCN), Heterodera glycines Ichinohe, is a destructive pest of soybean. Damage to soybean by SCN was first reported from northeastern China in 1899 (1). SCN has been documented in Anhui, Beijing, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Jiangsu, Jilin, Liaoning, Neimenggu, Shaanxi, Shandong, and Shanxi provinces in mainland China (1). These provinces are situated in the Heilongjiang and Songhuajing valleys in northeastern China and the eastern region of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in northern China and have cold to temperate climates. In June of 2008, cyst-forming nematodes were detected in two soybean-growing areas of Hangzhou and Xiaoshan in Zhejiang Province, in subtropical eastern China. The soybean plants at the Hangzhou site showed symptoms of stunting and chlorosis, whereas no aboveground or root symptoms were observed on soybean plants at the Xiaoshan site, except for the presence of SCN females on the roots. The two populations had the same morphological and molecular characters. The cysts were lemon shaped with posterior protuberance, ambifenestrate, underbridge and bullae strongly developed, and lateral field of second-stage juveniles consisted of four incisures. The key morphometrics of cysts were fenestra length (41 to 52 mu m) and width (33 to 48 mu m), vulval silt (47 to 55 mu m), and underbridge length (79 to 94 mu m), all of which were coincident with that of SCN (2). Amplification of rDNA-internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region using primers TW81 (5'-GTT TCC GTA GGT GAA CCT GC-3') and AB28 (5'-ATA TGC TTA AGT TCA GCG GGT-3') yielded a PCR fragment of approximately 1,030 bp. The digestion patterns of the PCR fragments of the ITS region with AluI, AvaI, CfoI, MvaI, and RsaI showed identical restriction profiles to H. glycines (3), and the sequences exhibited 100% similarity with those of H. glycines isolates, Accession No. AY667456 from GenBank. Morphological and molecular identification confirmed that the two populations of cyst-forming nematodes from Zhejiang are SCN. To our knowledge, this is the first report of SCN in Zhejiang, now the most southern location in mainland China with confirmed infestation of SCN. References: (1) Z. X. Liu et al. Int. J. Nematol. 7:18, 1997. (2) R. H. Mulvey. Can. J. Zool. 50:1277, 1972. (3) J. Zheng et al. Russ. J. Nematol. 8:109, 2000.