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In September 2013, a canker disease of Ficus nitida and F. benjamina was reported for the first time in Assiut governorate, Egypt. Infected samples were collected from various locations. Pure cultures of a fungus were isolated on potato dextrose agar at 25°C from diseased plants. Morphological investigation and DNA sequencing showed that the causal agent was Neoscytalidium dimidiatum. A pathogenicity test conducted using 2-year-old plants of each host gave 70%-80% infection, and the pathogen was reisolated from the inoculated plants. A pure culture of N. dimidiatum was deposited in the culture collection of the Assiut University Mycological Centre (AUMC) under the code AUMC 9293 and the ITS sequence was placed in NCBI under accession number KX985929.

A study was conducted to determine the surface contaminant fungi associated with different samples of Egyptian Ras Cheese collected from different locations in Assiut City, Egypt. 52 fungal isolates assigned to six species belonging to the genera Aspergillus, Penicillium and Mucor were recovered and identified. Aspergillus was the most predominant and represented by four species namely A. flavus, A. niger, A. ustus, and A. fumigatus. Penicillium aurantiogriseum and Mucor racemosus were detected as a single representative of the genera Penicillium and Mucor. All the isolated fungal species produced casienase and lipase but did not produce lactase. Analysis of the studied Ras cheese samples for the presence of aflatoxin indicated that 66.6 % of the analyzed samples were contaminated with aflatoxins B 1 , B 2 and G 2 .

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