Archivio Journal of Plant Pathology

Abstract:

We developed a novel inoculation method, the ‘filterpaper method’, for the assay of grey leaf spot (GLS) in Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.). In this method, a conidial suspension of Pyricularia oryzae, the causal agent of GLS, is dropped onto a filter paper, which is placed, inoculated-side down, on the abaxial surface of a detached leaf on an agar plate. The filter-paper method was more repeatable than the spot inoculation method developed for rice, and the disease scores obtained were correlated (r = 0.6, P < 0.01) with those obtained under glasshouse conditions by the standard inoculation method. We optimized this novel method and demonstrated its usefulness for the selection of GLS resistance in Italian ryegrass.