Evaluation of Resistance of Several Strawberry Selections against Main Fungal Pathogens

Besides the agronomical characteristics desirable in a strawberry selection, another important factor to take into account is the resistance of this material against fungal pathogens. The main goal of these studies was to test the resistance of 25 different selections of strawberry material against Verticillium wilt (caused by Verticillium dahliae), crown rot (caused by Phytophthora cactorum) and powdery mildew (caused by Podosphaera aphanis), the main diseases in strawberry plant nurseries. The soil-borne pathogen experiments were conducted under controlled conditions (22 degrees C, 80% RH and 16 hours lighting period) from 2003 to 2006. These experiments consisted in artificial inoculations of ten plants of each selection or commercial cultivar with V. dahliae or P. cactorum. The natural infection was enough to test the susceptibility of the strawberry selections in resistance test against powdery mildew under controlled and field conditions. Some new selections ('0-205', '1508-1', '1601-1' and '2-552') showed good resistance compared with 'Camarosa' against P. cactorum. However, the range of selections resistant against V. dalhiae ('2-233', '1-1165') or S. macularis ('1-1165') is reduced.