A growth room inoculation method to detect different levels of sunflower susceptibility to Sclerotinia sclerotiorum

BLANCO, F; BAZZALO, M; DE LA CANAL, L.

OCL - OLEAGINEUX CORPS GRAS LIPIDES

John Libbey Eurotext

Año: 1998 vol. 5 p. 61 - 64

1258-8210

An indoor inoculation procedure to obtain reproducible infection of sunflower seedlings with Sclerotinia sclerotiorum was developed. Seedlings were sprayed with a S. sclerotiorum ascospore suspension and, after 7 days incubation, leaves showed wilting symptoms. The insertion angle of the first pair of leaves was used for wilting quantification. When the susceptible inbred line ‘HA89’ was tested, highly significant differences in the values of the insertion angle between control and inoculated plants were detected. In addition, Anova showed a significant decrease in the insertion angle in four inbred lines previously characterized as susceptible or rather tolerant in field trials. Line ‘HA89’ showed the highest wilting index, whereas the tolerant line ‘SD’ was the less affected by the inoculation with S. sclerotiorum. As this result is consistent with their field responses, the possible uses of the procedure described here are discussed.