Fungi associated with <i>Phaseolus vulgaris</i> L. seeds cultivated in Cuba

Abstract

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), is the most important legume specie for Cuba, 123 434 ha were harvested for a production of 127 100 t during 2012. Most of phytopathogenic fungi associated to beans used seeds to move their inoculum to new areas, which under favorable condition can cause considerable yield losses. The objective of the present study was to identify fungi associated with bean seeds, their frequency and incidence for bean variety. 102 seed bean lots of 16 varieties for Pinar del Río, Mayabeque and Artemisa provinces were studied. For each seed lot 400 seed were analyzed by blotter test. 679 fungal isolates belonging to 34 species of 20 genera were detected. Penicillium sp. (78.4%), Rhizoctonia solani (77.5%), Aspergillus niger (68.6%) and Fusarium solani (51.0%) were the predominant species. Nine Fusarium species and six Aspergillus species were identified. Sclerotinia sclerotiorum was detected in BAT-58, BAT-93 and Delicia-365 varieties, on which higher infected seed percent was detected in BAT-93. This paper is the first report of S. sclerotiorum incidence on Cuban seed bean. Key words: Aspergillus, Fusarium, mycobiota, Phaseolus, Sclerotinia