Identification of Spanish isolates of Rhizoctonia solani from potato by anastomosis grouping, ITS-RFLP and RAMS-fingerprinting

Anastomosis grouping, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of the ITS regions including the 5.85 rDNA, and random amplified microsatellites (RAMS) were used to characterize isolates of Rhizoctonia solani collected from Spain and Finland. There was a high similarity between the results obtained with the three techniques. RAMS markers revealed more genetic variation among isolates of R. solani than RFLP. The anastomosis group (AG)–3 isolates were clearly separated from isolates belonging to other AGs by RAMS, RFLPs and anastomosis grouping. Almost all the isolates sampled from potato belonged to AG–3. No differences were observed between Spanish and Finnish AG–3 isolates.