Archivio Journal of Plant Pathology

Abstract:

Lisianthus is an important flower crop susceptible to Botrytis cinerea grey mould. Therefore we studied whether lisianthus plants could be protected or not with the use of alkamides from the herb Heliopsis longipes against artificially inoculated B. cinerea during pre- and postharvest. Grey mould symptoms on inoculated leaves of lisianthus were decreased three times by pre-treatment with alkamides, compared to untreated, greenhouse-cultured lisianthus. In postharvest stored shoots no protection was observed. Our results show that the exogenous application of alkamides promoted resistance in lisianthus plants against B. cinerea during preharvest but not postharvest storage.