First report of on banana in South Africa

An unknown speckle disease was recently observed on Cavendish banana leaves in Levubu, the most northern of the five banana-growing regions of South Africa. Morphological examination of infected material and single conidial isolates of the causal organism revealed that it was . Isolates of the fungus were subjected to pathogenicity testing and sequencing of the ITS region (ITS-1 and ITS-2) and the 5.8S gene of the rDNA operon, and compared with an authentic strain of . These results verified the identity of the fungus as and constitute the first confirmed report of Cladosporium speckle on banana leaves in South Africa.