phyllosphere microbiome in tea leaves

To reveal the influence of phyllosphere microbiome on tea blister blight disease development, we employed a combination of 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) amplicon data to examine the alterations in the phyllosphere microbiome in relation to varying levels of blister blight disease. Tea plants (Camellia sinensis cv. Fuding dabai) were grown in the gardens of NorthwestA&F University Tea Experimental Station (Xixiang, Shaanxi, China). The fresh third leaves with only one typical tea blister-blight symptoms were collected in September 2022 and classified at different stages of disease progression (early, middle, and late) and healthy tea tree leaves. The healthy group was designated as H, and the disease groups were labelled S1, S1, and S2 based on the disease period, with three replicates per group and 12 samples in total.