- classification : Fungi, Ascomycota, Leotiomycetes, Leotiomycetidae, Erysiphales, Erysiphaceae
- synonymies: Oidiopsis sicula Scalia, (1906); Oidiopsis taurica (Lév.) ES Salmon, (1906)
- English names: powdery mildew, white mold

Rather subservient to hot and dry areas, tropical to subtropical, this fungus is in fact more widely distributed in the world due to rather broad thermal and water requirements.

Depending on the production situations, it is able to affect both open field crops and under cover. It sometimes causes considerable damage, greatly reducing the photosynthetic capacity of plants and therefore their yield. Production declines of several tens of percent have been reported. Repercussions on the quality of the fruits were also noted, in particular related to the overexposure of the fruits to the sun and the consequent burns.

This plant fungus is present in France without constituting a limiting factor of production. However, it is occasionally serious in certain sheltered crops where epidemics were not detected in time or were poorly identified.


Under the name of " Leveillula taurica " is in fact hiding a complex of species which attacks a very large number of cultivated plants or weeds: more than 1000 species belonging to 74 botanical families. This obligate parasitic fungus is well known in Solanaceae, especially on tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. Its rather particular biology, and in particular its parasitic process on these hosts, brings it closer to Alternaria tomatophila mildews than to other classical ectoparasitic powdery .