Prevalence, inventory and characterization of different morphotypes of Fusarium spp. associated with spoilage of tomato fruits (Solanum lycopersicum L.) in the west-region of Cameroon

Abstract

Fusariosis is one of the diseases that cause many pre- and post-harvest losses of tomato fruits. This disease is caused by fungi belonging to the genus Fusarium spp. The present study was carried out to determine the prevalence of Fusariosis in the major tomato fruit production basins in West Cameroon, to inventory and characterize the different Fusarium spp. morphotypes associated with this tomato fruit rot. To achieve this objective, the prevalence of these fruit rots was determined in each production basins. The different morphotypes were obtained from tomato fruit rot. The results showed that the prevalence of this disease was significantly higher and identical in all localities covered by the study according to the Duncan test at P ≤ 0.05. Fruits from these basins contained nine morphotypes of Fusarium spp. of which the most frequent were F1DS morphotypes (16.92%) from Dschang followed by F1BD (16.62%) and F3BD (16.34%) from Mbouda fruits and the least frequent was F3FBT from Foumbot. The study of the morpho-cultural characters of the different morphotypes of Fusarium spp. showed that the morphotypes F2DSC from Dschang, F1FBT, F3FBT from Foumbot, F1BD, F3BD and F4BD from Mbouda showed the greatest radial growth. Similarly, the morphotypes F2DSC from Dschang and F1BD from Mbouda showed the fastest growth rate, while the lowest growth rates were recorded with the F1DSC, F3DSC from Dschang and F2FBT from Foumbot. Foumbot's F3FBT and Mbouda's F1BD morphotypes showed the highest sporulation rate. On the other hand, the F3DSC morphotype of Dschang showed the lowest number of conidia.