Impact of Inoculation Methods and Fruit Maturity on Development of Fusarium Fruit Rot (Fusarium musae) Disease in Banana

Abstract

Background: Fusarium fruit rot symptoms appear at all stages of banana fruit once infection initiates and progress from the stylar end as dark brown to black small spots which eventually turns black rotten areas leading to rotten pulp which renders the fruit unmarketable. Very meagre research work has been done on Fusarium fruit rot disease of banana in India and hence the present investigation on Fusarium fruit rot diseases of banana was undertaken south Gujarat condition. Methods: During the period 2018-2019 tested different inoculation methods were tested on the development of banana Fusarium fruit rot disease viz., stylar end pricking, rubbing, pricking at epicarp and without injury on banana fruit. Disease severity and incidence were recorded at 4th and 8th day after inoculation. In order to find out the most vulnerable stage of fruit for initiation of infection and development of Fusarium fruit rot disease, three stages of fruits were selected i.e., unripe, semi-ripe and ripe.Conclusion: Among, the different methods with fruit injury, stylar end pricking method was found best for the infection and development of Fusarium fruit rot (34.14%) after 8th days of inoculation followed by pricking at epicarp (27.79%). Further it was observed that injury of fruit surface is essential for infection and development of Fusarium fruit rot in banana. However, the severity of Fusarium fruit rot revealed that the highest severity was recorded in ripe fruits (30.21%) as compared to semi ripe (30.08%) and unripe (14.70%) fruits.