Following the commodity risk assessments of bonsai plants from China consisting of Pinus parviflora grafted on P. thunbergii performed by EFSA, the EFSA Plant Health Panel performed a pest categorisation of Pestalotiopsis disseminata, a clearly defined plant pathogenic fungus of the family Pestalotiopsidaceae. The pathogen has been reported on herbaceous, woody and ornamental plants causing symptoms such as leaf blight, shoot blight, seedling blight, pod canker, pre‐ and post‐harvest fruit rot, and gummosis. Moreover, the fungus was reported as an endophyte on a wide range of asymptomatic hosts. The pathogen is present in Africa, North and South America, Asia, Europe and Oceania. It has been reported from the EU, with a restricted distribution (Portugal). There is a key uncertainty on the geographical distribution of P. disseminata in the EU and worldwide, because of the endophytic nature of the …
Bragard, C., Baptista, P., Chatzivassiliou, E., Di Serio, F., Gonthier, P., Jaques Miret, J. A., Justesen, A. F., MacLeod, A., Magnusson, C. S., Milonas, P., Navas‐Cortes, J. A., Parnell, S., Potting, R., Stefani, E., Thulke, H.-H., Van der Werf, W., Vicent Civera, A., Yuen, J., Zappalà, L., et al. (2023). Pest categorisation of Pestalotiopsis disseminata. EFSA Journal, 21(12), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2023.8494 (Original work published 2023)