Resistance of Vitis Germplasm to Elsinoë ampelina (de Bary) Shear Evaluated by Lesion Number and Diameter

Abstract

We evaluated the resistance of 133 grapevine cultivars or selections, including Vitis vinifera and American hybrids, on the basis of lesion number and length to identify sources of resistance to grapevine anthracnose. All germplasms tested in this study showed anthracnose symptoms to some extent, and the distribution of lesion number and diameter was continuous. Most table grape V. vinifera cultivars were highly susceptible, showing many large lesions. However, V. vinifera wine grapes were more resistant with smaller lesions. Some American hybrid grapes such as ‘Ontario’ showed very few and small lesions. There was a significant positive correlation between lesion number and size in American (r = 0.63, P = 0.0041) and Japanese hybrids (r = 0.56, P < 0.001), whereas there was no correlation between these characters in V. vinifera. Japanese tetraploid cultivars were neither highly susceptible nor resistant. High anthracnose susceptibility of most well-known table grape V. vinifera cultivars, including ‘Muscat of Alexandria’, ‘Italia’, ‘Rizamat’, ‘Kattakurgan’, and ‘Thompson Seedless’, indicates that resistance should be introgressed from other cultivars such as American hybrids or wine grapes when these susceptible table grapes or their descendants are used in breeding anthracnose-resistant table grapes.