Leaf fungal pathogens and endophytes

In this project we develop and apply a culture-independent workflow for fungal barcoding and identification using high-throughput sequencing (HTS) of the ITS1 rDNA region. Foliar fungal targets were identified through visible fructifications, and DNA from infested leaf tissues was sequenced. The approach links observed fungal structures with dominant DNA signals to generate reliable barcodes for uncultivable taxa, enhancing representation of foliar fungi in sequence databases.