Abstract:Sexual hybridization in Setosphaeria turcica could possibly enhance its pathogenicity and produce new races, therefore, studies on its pathogenicity changes and genetic polymorphism among its descendants will accelerate the control of diseases caused by the fungus. The physiological race identification and AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) analysis were conducted among the 70 single ascospores (F1 isolates) of the sexual hybridization between isolate 132 and isolate 135 of Setosphaeria turcica. The results indicated that 41.4% of F1 isolates were consistent with isolate 132 (race 23N), 20.0% of F1 isolates consistent with isolate 135 (race 23), the other isolates were not consistent with the parent isolates, among which 2.9% belonged to race 0, 1.4% belonged to race 1, 2.9% belonged to race 2, 2.9% belonged to race 3, 4.3% belonged to race 13, 8.6% belonged to race 123, 1.4% belonged to race 12N, 4.3% belonged to race 13N, and 10.0% belonged to race 123N. The results of physiological race identification among F1 and parent isolates revealed that the sexual hybridization in fungal pathogen could produce diverse variance in pathogenicity. The results of AFLP analysis among F1 and parent isolates indicated that the genetic similarity between F1 isolates was from 0.87 to 0.99. 84.3% of F1 isolates were shown genetically similar to parent isolates with genetic similarity coefficiency of above 0.878, but among which the number of F1 isolates similar to parent isolate 132 was about 5 times of the number similar to parent isolate 135, indicating that different isolates has different ability of genetic transmission. Comparison between the results of physiological race identification and AFLP analysis indicated that there were some correlation between physiological races and DNA polymorphism of the pathogen but not simple genetic pedigree-races relationship between them.