Author(s)

Rababe Es-Soufi^1*, Mohammed L’bachir El Kbiach¹, Tomader Errabii¹, Rabah Saidi^1,2, Alain Badoc³, Ludovic Chaveriat⁴, Patrick Martin⁴, Ahmed Lamarti¹

¹Laboratory of Plant Biotechnology, Biology Department, Faculty of Sciences, Abdelmalek Essaadi University, Tetouan, Morocco.
²Department of Matter and Life Sciences, High Normal School, Martil, Morocco.
³Unité de Recherche Œnologie, Axe Molécules d’Intérêt Biologique (MIB), University of Bordeaux, Villenave-d’Ornon, France.
⁴Artois University, UniLasalle, EA7519-Unité Transformations and Agro-Ressources, Béthune, France.

Seven Colletotrichum acutatum strains isolated from strawberries were cultivated on various culture media and tested in vitro and in vivo on Fragaria x ananassa for anthracnose symptoms. PDA caused an optimum growth of all isolates, MEA, ML and Strawberry allowed a good but not optimal growth. Czapeck, Sabouraud and the organic medium from potato gave the lowest growth rate of all isolates. PDA allowed a good sporulation of isolates follow-up by strawberry, MEA; in contrast, ML, Czapeck and Sabouraud gave a low sporulation. The fungal development is maximal at 25°C and 27°C for all the isolates studied. No growth was observed at 5°C and 37°C. The studied strains developed at all pH values. They didn’t develop at 0.6, 0.65 and 0.7 aw but mycelial growth was perfect at 1 and 0.95 aw. The in vitro test of the pathogenicity caused by C. acutatum strains on strawberry’s leaves showed an increasing percentage of infection with time and different infection rates among C. acutatum strains, strain Ca6 having a pathogenic power very high compared to the other isolates. After in vivo inoculation and incubation of the seedlings, all isolates caused severe symptoms related to anthracnose on leaflets and petioles of the studied strawberry plants.

Anthracnose, Strawberry, Colletotrichum acutatum, Environmental Factors, Pathogenicity

Es-Soufi, R. , El Kbiach, M. , Errabii, T. , Saidi, R. , Badoc, A. , Chaveriat, L. , Martin, P. and Lamarti, A. (2018) Biology and Physiology of Colletotrichum acutatum Strains Causing Strawberry’s Anthracnose. Agricultural Sciences, 9, 974-990. doi: 10.4236/as.2018.98068.