Variations in Pathogenicity of Three Different Forms of Rhizoctonia Inoculum and Assessment of Cultivar Resistance of Sugar Beet

Abstract

Rhizoctonia solani causes pre-emergence and post-emergence damping-off, as well as crown and root rot of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.), which significantly affects the yield returns in the USA and Europe. The pathogen overwinters as sclerotia or melanized mycelium. Traditionally, the resistance of cultivars to R. solani is evaluated by scoring disease reactions at the crowns and roots of older seedlings, thus resistance is not evaluated during seed germination. Moreover, earlier studies evaluated cultivars resistance to R. solani using colonized whole barley or wheat grains which, unlike sclerotia, are artificial inocula of the pathogen that require time, space and technical know-how to produce. Moreover, colonized grains are prone to contamination with other pathogens, consumed by rodents/birds while applied in the field, and are often uneconomic. Considering those limitations, a study was undertaken (1) to develop in vitro methods to generate large-scale sclerotia, (2) to compare pathogenic potentials of sclerotia, mycelia, and colonized barley grains for optimization of dampingoff assays, and (3) to evaluate Rhizoctonia resistance of selected commercial cultivars during the seed germination phase. Comparing six different culture media, we found that R. solani had the highest radial growth (8.9 ± 0.04, cm³) at 8-days and the maximum number of sclerotia produced (203 ± 4.6) at 28-days in CV8 medium. We demonstrated significant differences in pathogenicity of the three different forms of R. solani inocula and susceptibility of cultivars to preand post-emergence damping-off. The highest pre-emergence damping-off and root rot were observed with sclerotia, and the highest post-emergence dampingoff was recorded with both sclerotial and colonized barley inocula. In addition, varietal differences in susceptibility to pre- and post-emergence damping-off were noted. The highest pre-emergence damping-off was recorded on cv Crystal 101RR and lowest in Maribo MA 504. The highest post-emergence damping-off was recorded on BTS 8500 and the lowest in Crystal 467. The maximum mean root rot was observed in BTS 8500, BTS 8606, and Crystal 101R. Our studies demonstrated that sclerotia serve as efficient natural inocula, reemphasized that host-pathogen interactions differ at the early vs. late stages of sugar beet growth, and highlighted the need to reevaluate commercial sugar beet cultivars for resistance at the seed germination stage.