The sclerotia of Villosiclava virens were found commonly in high altitude and the temperate regions, where the temperatures are relatively low in rice filling stage. To make sure if low temperature induce the sclerotial formation in V. virens, the inoculated rice panicles in laboratory and the diseased rice panicles cut from paddy fields were treated under different temperatures. The results showed that 3 days of night temperature at 15°C were enough to induce the sclerotial formation. The low temperature was much more effective for young balls with intact membranes. After appearance of chlamydospores on the ball surfaces, the sclerotium could not differentiate anymore. The sclerotia began to differentiate below the chlamydospore layer and gradually grew onto the ball surfaces. This suggests that low temperature in the early development stage of false smut balls is an important factor to induce the sclerotial differentiation, and rice cultivars with long growth periods are able to produce more sclerotium-bearing balls, which will produce mass of spores in paddy field in the coming year.

Rice false smut is caused by ascomycete Villosiclava virens, whose potential alternative hosts have been assumed previously. Here its potential alternative hosts were surveyed and identified from 2008 to 2013 in the main rice-growing regions in China. Two common weeds in paddy fields, Digitaria sanguinalis Scop. and Echinochloa crusgalli (L.) Beauv., were found to present the similar symptoms to smut diseases in a few individuals in 2012 and 2013 in Zhejiang and Sichuan provinces of China, respectively. After the examinations of the spore morphology, their infection and extension mode in hosts, pathogen cell wall components, and molecular identification, the two pathogens were identified to be the Basidiomycetes, Ustilago syntherismae and Ustilago trichophora, respectively. So far there has been no alternative host of V. virens to be identified in China. These suggest that the alternative hosts of V. virens, if they do exist, are not possible to play an important role in the pathogen life cycle and the disease epidemics.