Key factors to inoculate Botrytis cinerea in tomato plants

Abstract

Studies addressing the biological control of Botrytis cinerea have been unsuccessful because of fails in inoculating tomato plants with the pathogen. With the aim of establishing a methodology for inoculation into stems, experiments were designed to assess: i. the aggressiveness of pathogen isolates; ii. the age at which tomato plants should be inoculated; iii. the susceptibility of tissues at different stem heights; iv. the need for a moist chamber after inoculation; and v. the effectiveness of gelatin regarding inoculum adhesion. Infection with an isolate from tomato plants that was previously inoculated into petioles and then re-isolated was successful. An isolate from strawberry plants was also aggressive, although less than that from tomato plants. Tomato plants close to flowering, at 65 days after sowing, and younger, middle and apical stem portions were more susceptible. There was positive correlation between lesion length and sporulation and between lesion length and broken stems. Lesion length and the percentage of sporulation sites were reduced by using a moist chamber and were not affected by adding gelatin to the inoculum suspension. This methodology has been adopted in studies of B. cinerea in tomato plants showing reproducible results. The obtained results may assist researchers who study the gray mold.

Hormetic UV‐C seed treatments for the control of tomato diseases

“…Botrytis cinerea inoculations were performed on broken petioles, a common site of natural inoculation in commercial glasshouses (Beyers et al ., ). Inoculations were performed during flowering as disease susceptibility increases during anthesis (Borges et al ., ). A 4 kJ m −2 dose showed significant reductions in the incidence (10.3%) and progression (11.4%) of B. cinerea .…”

“…For example, Botrytis cinerea and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (FOL) have been reported to cause crop losses of up to 70% and 80%, respectively (Borges et al ., ; Nirmaladevi et al ., ). With the introduction of EU legislation on the sustainable use of plant protection products and the emergence of fungicide resistance, limited disease control options are available to commercial producers.…”

Antagonistic activity of Trichoderma asperellum and Trichoderma harzianum against genetically diverse Botrytis cinerea isolates

“…Botrytis cinerea Pers., the causal agent of the grey mold disease is a ubiquitous phytopathogenic fungus, which attacks more than 230 plant species. It is one of the most important diseases in commercial greenhouse production of vegetables all over the world, especially in tomato and cucumber (Borges et al, 2014;Soliman et al, 2015). In the Republic of Macedonia, grey mold of tomato is the leading disease in greenhouse production of tomato, with yield losses that can surpass 70% (Kuzmanovska et al, 2012).…”

Visible/Near-Infrared (Vis/Nir) Spectroscopy Technique to Detect Gray Mold Disease in the Early Stages of Tomato Fruit

“…Then 20 samples of each variety were injected with a fungus solution with a 10 µl of four areas around the neck region and 10 samples were left as a control and injected with a 0.05% KH2PO4glucose and tween 80 solution. After that, all samples were left at room temperature 25±1°C with plastic boxes (Borges et al, 2014).…”