Susceptibility of chrysanthemum and Paris daisy varieties to several isolates of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. chrysanthemi
Garibaldi, A.; Bertetti, D.; Gullino, M.L.
Communications in Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences 74(3): 651-657
2009
ISSN/ISBN: 1379-1176 PMID: 20222547 Document Number: 632496
Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. chrysonthemi is a pathogen recently reported in Italy on four economically important ornamental crops belonging to the Compositae family: chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium), Paris daisy (Argyranthemum frutescens), African daisy (Osteospermum sp.) and gerbera (Gerbera jamesonii). The risk of transmission of the pathogen among these species is high because the hosts are frequently cultivated in the same nursery. The susceptibility of 24 Paris daisy and 12 chrysanthemum cultivars to 10 isolates of F. oxysporum f. sp. chrysanthemi and 3 isolates of F. oxysporum of different origin and to one isolate of F. tracheiphilum from gerbera was tested. Among the tested chrysanthemum cultivars, "Menthise bianco", "Cottonball", "Super Yellow" and "Meribel" were resistant to all the tested strains, while Pingpong gel was resistant to 10 out of 12 isolates. Among the 24 tested cultivars of Paris daisy, only "Sole mio", "Butterfly" and "Maria" were resistant to all isolates of F. oxysporum f.sp. chrysanthemi and to F. tracheiphilum. The results obtained in this work suggest the need of devoting more attention to resistance to Fusarium wilt while developing new varieties of both chrysanthemum and Paris daisy, since only few varieties are resistant to all strains tested.