A laboratory leaf assay of carrot susceptibility to Botrytis cinerea

Laboratory experiments were conducted to develop an assay for evaluation of carrot (Daucus carota L.) leaf reaction to Botrytis cinerea Pers. ex Pers. The detached carrot leaflets were inoculated with the colonized agar plugs attached to the cut surface of the midrib or by spraying conidial suspension. The estimation of the infected leaflet area expressed as the area under the disease progress curve enabled the discrimination between carrot genotypes differing in their susceptibility to the pathogen. Evaluation based on the measurement of the length of the midrib lesion did not allow such differentiation. The inoculation of leaf surface with suspension of conidia was less reliable and the development of the disease symptoms was not reproducible. The established assay using colonized plugs enables a fast assessment of carrot leaf susceptibility to grey mould and can be particularly useful for a non-destructive, preliminary evaluation of precious and limited source materials. © 2006 The Authors.