Evaluation of tomato rootstocks to bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia pseudosolanacearum and R. solanacearum

Abstract

Bacterial wilt limit tomato production and the use of tolerant rootstocks could be an important strategy for the integrated management of the disease. This study aimed to evaluate a reaction of 16 commercial tomato rootstocks to bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum (RS) and R. pseudosolanacearum (RP). Initially, the rootstock reaction to two sequevars of RS and two sequevars of RP was evaluated in four experiments carried out in the greenhouse using experimental design completely randomized, with four replications composed of four plants each. In these experiments, seven genotypes were selected to evaluate the reaction to bacterial wilt as rootstocks grafting in tomato plants cv. Tomini F1 in an area with a history of the disease, using randomized block design with four plants per treatment in each block. All genotypes showed significant differences in relation to the susceptible control and disease symptoms were not observed in the grafted plants in Guardiao, Woodstock, and Yoshimatsu. Regarding all experiments, Guardiao and Muralha genotypes showed the best tolerance levels and could be promising for use as rootstocks in the integrated management of bacterial wilt.