Abstract
Avocado (Persea americana) is a fruit crop of economic importance in Ecuador. Currently, a low incidence of Phytophthora cinnamomi has been reported, however, there are other soil pathogens that can affect this crop, even at the initial stages of plant multiplication (nursery), for this reason the use of rootstocks that tolerate these biotic adversities is recommended. In this research, the fungus Fusarium oxysporum was isolated from roots of nursery seedlings with symptoms of necrosis. In addition, an isolate of this pathogenic fungus modified with a strain of Agrobacterium tumefaciens was used to determine the infection of F. oxysporum in the roots of the Fuerte (commercial) and Criollo (local) cultivars. The results allowed to infer that the cultivar Criollo presented a greater tolerance to F. oxysporum than the cultivar Fuerte, which corroborates its use as a rootstock for commercial avocado varieties. Furthermore, to our knowledge, this is the first report of F. oxysporum affecting avocado nursery seedlings in Ecuador.
Highlights
Avocado (Persea americana) has become a fruit crop with great commercial demand in Ecuador and internationally due to its good taste and nutritional atributes (Viera et al, 2016).Within the genus Persea, three races have been identified: Mexican (P. americana variety drymifolia), Guatemalan (P. americana variety guatemalensis) and Antillean (P. americana variety americana) (Álvarez et al, 2015)
In Latin American, most of the cultivated avocados are hybrid varieties that contain genetic material from all three races. One of these is the called Fuerte which is the most important commercial cultivar in Ecuador; there are local materials known as Criollos which are frequently used as rootstock for commercial varieties (Viera et al, 2017)
Root cuts of 1 cm length with necrosis symptoms were placed in Petri dishes containing Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium supplemented with 100 ppm of chloramphenicol antibiotic, and they were placed in the incubator at a temperature of 25 °C for 7 days
Summary
Avocado (Persea americana) has become a fruit crop with great commercial demand in Ecuador and internationally due to its good taste and nutritional atributes (Viera et al, 2016).Within the genus Persea, three races have been identified: Mexican (P. americana variety drymifolia), Guatemalan (P. americana variety guatemalensis) and Antillean (P. americana variety americana) (Álvarez et al, 2015). In Latin American, most of the cultivated avocados are hybrid varieties that contain genetic material from all three races. One of these is the called Fuerte which is the most important commercial cultivar in Ecuador; there are local materials known as Criollos which are frequently used as rootstock for commercial varieties (Viera et al, 2017). Symptoms observed in young plants are lack of development, loss of brightness and vigor, yellowing of the leaves and generalized wilting, and as the infection progresses, the plant withers, loses leaves and eventually dies (Ramírez et al, 2014). In avocados causes wilting symptoms in the United States and Colombia (Ramírez et al, 2014) It has been reported Fusarium sp. in avocados causes wilting symptoms in the United States and Colombia (Ramírez et al, 2014)
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