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Early blight (EB) is a destructive disease affecting potato and tomato plants in Russia, caused by a heterogeneous group of plant pathogenic Alternaria fungi. The current species delimitation in Alternaria sect. Porri with medium to large conidia and a long (filamentous) beak is based on molecular data. In this study, the ITS, GAPDH, RPB2, TEF1, and Alt a 1 gene regions were analyzed in 41 large-spored Alternaria isolates obtained from diseased potato and tomato plants collected from 13 regions in Russia. Our data revealed five pathogenic species (A. alternariacida, A. grandis, A. linariae, A. protenta, and A. solani). Two species (A. solani and A. linariae) were found to be associated with early blight of tomato. Alternaria linariae and A. protenta were confirmed as the major causal agents of tomato and potato early blight, respectively. There were no phylogenetic groupings among tested Russian Alternaria isolates associated with their locality.

The investigations were conducted on the gray forest heavy clay loamy soils, formed on the loess-like loams, which are widely spread on the territory of Vladimir Opolye. The eluvial-illuvial profile differentiation, its different intensity and the specificity of illuvial coatings (fine dispersed clayey and humus-clayey coatings with sparse skeletal content of soil) is confirmed. The presence of the coarse wooden plant residues, thick humus-clayey illuvial coatings within the illuvial horizons speak about the forest origin of the grey forest soils in Vladimir Opolye. The micromorphology of humus horizon reflects the direction of the soil forming process and the ecological status of soils. The illimerization is the main process of the matter migration and soil profile differentiation. The mixed-layer formations prevail in the clayey fraction. Mica, quartz, and K-feldspars are the prevailing compounds of the fine and medium silt within the gray forest soils. In the silt fraction of the second humus horizon prevail quartz and feld-spar. The most of the nutrients is concentrated in the clayey and fine-silt frac-tion. The micromorphological investigations confirmed the theory, which speaks about the presence of forest (the presence of illuvial coatings) as well as steppe soils (mull humus type in the SHH, the presence of primary and newly formed carbonates) specificities in the modern soil forming process within the gray forest soil of Vladimir Opolye.

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