In Vitro Studies Regarding the Biology and the Biological Control of some Botrytis

Abstract

Botrytis cinerea  Pers., attacks more than 250 herbaceous and arborescent species of plants being a pathogen spread across the world. This plant pathogen is the main body responsible for the occurrence of grey mould in grapes and other vegetables and fruits. The purpose of the research was the observation of the morphological and cultural characteristics of some isolates of the pathogen as well as the biological control with hydroalcoholic plant extracts. In our experiments we’ve identified and isolated the pathogen Botrytis cinerea Pers., we’ve inoculated on three culture media PDA, Czapek - agar, MA. The features that we observed were the growth rate of the colonies, the sporulation and sclerotia appearance, the shapes and the dimensions of conidia, the number and distribution of the sclerotia. The results obtained consist in differences of morphology, number and distribution of the sclerotia and dimensions of the conidia. For the control with plant extracts of the fungus the isolates were inoculated on PDA medium that contained the extract using the poison food technique. The fungistatic effect of the extracts was established by examining the presence or the absence of the colony growth. The diameters of the colonies were measured and in order to establish the growth inhibition of the fungus it was calculated the surfaces of the colonies that appeared on the treated plates using the ellipse area formula. The results obtained were expressed as inhibition percentage of mycelia growth compared with the dimensions of the control colony.