The control of Penicillium corymbiferum on crocus and its effect on corm production

Abstract

Crocus corms with different amounts of infection by Penicillium corymbiferum were planted in field plots in October 1982 and harvested in the following July. Differences in infection at planting had no effect on the development of the disease on harvested stored corms. Corms with 40–60% surface area infected by P. corymbiferum at planting had a reduced mean weight of harvested corms and yield (kg corms harvested per kg corms planted) compared with corms with 4–10% surface area infected at planting. Dipping corms in benomyl, captafol, tnancozeb or thiram solutions after harvesting failed to control the disease. The severity of disease was increased by damage occurring before storage and was reduced by delaying harvesting.

Corm Rot of Saffron: Epidemiology and Management

“…Occurrence of saffron corm rot complex was reported as dry rot in Kyoto and Hyogo in Japan [47,48]. The disease has also been reported in Spain and France [49], Spain [50,51], Italy [52][53][54], Greece [55], Morocco [56], Scotland [57], Iran [58,59], Netherlands [60], China [61,62], Almora (India) [63], Kishtwar (India) [64][65][66] and Pampore (India) [67,68]. In Central Italy (L Aquila), poor growth and wilting in the saffron fields due the corm rot caused serious economic losses to the farmers during 1988 and 1989 [69], and led to significant reduction in the yield, so much so that in some cases a complete loss of the saffron crop was recorded [70].…”

“…gladioli and Burkholderia gladioli have been observed [52,54,76]. Penicillium corymbiferum was reported from Scotland, Italy and China [57,79,80]. From Spain, Sclerotinia bulborum and Rhizoctonia crocorum have been reported as the causal organisms of corm rot of saffron [50].…”

“…From Iran, F. oxysporum, A. niger, P. digitatum, R. stolonifera, Aspergillus terreus, A. flavus, A. flavipes and A. niger have been encountered from the infected corms [59,83,84]. Severe infection of P. corymbiferum, reducing corm yield by more than 20% has been reported [57]. Fungal pathogens like Pythium spp., Rhizoctonia spp., Phoma spp., M. phaseolina, Penicillium spp., F. solani, R. crocorum and Phoma crocophi have also been found associated with the corm dry rot [49,53,64,68,85].…”

“…gladioli isolated from diseased corms [71]. Dipping Crocus corms infected with Penicillium corymbiferum, in benomyl, captafol, tnancozeb or thiram solutions has been found effective under laboratory conditions [57]. Corm treatment with carbendazim not only enhances the average yield of saffron, but the rotting of corms is also reduced, resulting in better saffron yield [129].…”

Isolation of Penicillium hirsutum from spoiled, packaged asparagus spears in Japan

“…This is the first report in Japan that P. hirsutum was isolated as a spoilage agent from harvested asparagus spears. (Kornerup and Wanscher 1978) Penicillium corymbiferum (Raper and Thom 1949) [synonym of P. hirsutum (Pitt 1979)] is known to infect liliaceous bulbs and root crops such as garlic (Smalley and Hansen 1962), crocus (Sutton and Wale 1985), and narcissus (Nicholson and Ingram 1998). The colony characteristics of the Penicillium strain identified as P. viridicatum in the previous study of garlic bulb-invading fungi (Saito and Tsuruta 1984) and used for the inoculation test in this study was not necessarily identical to that of P. hirsutum MS-100.…”