Evaluation of plant resistance inducers on different winter soft wheat cultivars against Septoria leaf blotch.

ABSTRACT

Septoria tritici blotch (STB) caused by Mycosphaerella graminicola (anamorph Zymoseptoria tritici) is one of the most devastating foliar diseases on bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Because of the emergence of fungal strains highly resistant to mainly used fungicides and the deleterious impacts of these fungicides on the environment, development of alternative control strategies to protect wheat crops against STB is needed. The induction of plant resistance by elicitors is likely to be a helpful alternative. Our study aims at characterizing the efficiency of potential resistance inducers towards STB in three bread wheat cultivars differing in their resistance levels to the pathogen Alixan (susceptible), Premio (moderately resistant) and Altigo (resistant). These cultivars were inoculated under controlled and semi-controlled conditions with the pathogenic M. graminicolo strain T01193 in order to assess the protective effect of three potential resistance inducers against the disease. Moreover, the direct antifungal effect bf these products was evaluated in vitro at different concentrations in order to verify their potential biocide activity. Furthermore, cytological analyses were performed in order to determine the effects of these products on the fungal infection process and to compare these effects among the three wheat cultivars. Finally, reactive oxygen species metabolism was investigated in the three cultivars during their interaction with T01193 by measuring peroxidase activity.