First Report of Southern Blight Caused by Sclerotium rolfsii on Hemp (Cannabis sativa) in Sicily and Southern Italy

Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), family Cannabaceae, is an annual herbaceous plant that is 1.5 to 4.0 m tall and native to the Caucasus Region, northern India, and Iran. It is cultivated in warm to temperate regions worldwide for its fiber, oil, and psychoactive substances. In Europe, commercial plantings have decreased from 52,872 ha in 1989 to 18,716 ha in 2005. Recently however, cultivation of hemp as a natural fiber species has been encouraged by European Union policy (2). During the summer of 2003, patches of dead plants were observed in test plots of 12 monoecious and dioecious hemp cultivars (Beniko, Epsylon 68, Felina 34, Ferimon, Fedora 17, Futura 75, Bialobrzeskie, Dioica 88, Fibranova…