Summary To avoid pathogen‐associated molecular pattern recognition, the hemibiotrophic maize pathogen Colletotrichum graminicola secretes proteins mediating the establishment of biotrophy. Targeted deletion of 26 individual candidate genes and seven gene clusters comprising 32 genes of C . graminicola identified a pathogenicity cluster ( CLU5 ) of five co‐linear genes, all of which, with the exception of CLU5b , encode secrete...