The study and early evaluation of resistance of banana accessions for wilt disease caused by fusarium oxyporum f.sp. Cubense VCG 01213/16 (TR4)

Abstract

Fusarium wilt is one of main diseases of banana in Indonesia. This disease has destroyed banana plantation in almost all parts of Indonesia and it is difficult to be managed by agronomic and chemical controls. However, some species/cultivars show tolerance or resistance to Fusarium wilt. It indicates that those species/cultivars have resistance genes in their genomic DNA. The evaluation of banana plants for Fusarium wilt resistance can be carried out artificially using young plants from tissue culture. The objectives of this research were to evaluate young acclimatized tissue culture plants for Fusarium wilt resistance and to study the resistance mechanism of plant to Fusarium wilt disease. The experiment used five banana accessions; there were Calcuta-4 (AAw), Ketan (AAB), Klutuk (BB), Kepok (ABB) and Ambon Hijau (AAA), and double compartment for planting system. Before planting on the plastic cup containing sterile sand medium, roots of the plantlets were dipped in 106 conidia suspension of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense for five minutes. All of the cups containing inoculated plants were put on the plastic trays. The data were collected five weeks after planting. Base on the value of DSI (disease severity index) of RDI (rhizome discoloration index) and LSI (leaf symptom index), accessions will be categorized into highly susceptible, susceptible, tolerant and resistant. Result showed that Klutuk, Calcuta-4, Ketan and Kepok were categorized as tolerant, while Ambon Hijau was susceptible. All of tolerant accessions had symptom on leaves (LSI) and/or rhizome (RDI) at low level, and they still grew well.