| Summary: | Early blight (EB) is a destructive disease affecting potato and tomato plants in Russia, caused by a heterogeneous group of plant pathogenic <i>Alternaria</i> fungi. The current species delimitation in <i>Alternaria</i> 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 <i>Alternaria</i> isolates obtained from diseased potato and tomato plants collected from 13 regions in Russia. Our data revealed five pathogenic species (<i>A. alternariacida</i>, <i>A. grandis</i>, <i>A. linariae</i>, <i>A. protenta</i>, and <i>A. solani</i>). Two species (<i>A. solani</i> and <i>A. linariae</i>) were found to be associated with early blight of tomato. <i>Alternaria linariae</i> and <i>A. protenta</i> were confirmed as the major causal agents of tomato and potato early blight, respectively. There were no phylogenetic groupings among tested Russian <i>Alternaria</i> isolates associated with their locality.
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