In tropical regions and warm temperature regions, Macrophomina phaseolina is a causal agent of root, stem, and fruit decay in more than 500 cultivated plants species. However, not much is known about the influence of temperature and soil humidity in the germination of microsclerotia. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of temperature-water tension interaction in the sand substract on the germination of microsclerotia of the fungus. This work was carried out under laboratory conditions and involved two phases. In the first phase the effect of the interaction of five temperatures with two water tension levels was evaluated. In the second phase, the effect of the interaction of two temperatures with six water tension levels was evaluated. A completely randomized design with factorial arrangement and four replications was used for both experiments. The results showed (P<0.05) that the greatest percents of germination occurred at 30 ºC and 33 ºC. At water a tension of -1,500 kPa microesclerotia germination occurred at all temperatures tested. The water tension of -80 kPa tended to show the highest percent of germination, although it did not differ from -8, -300 and -1,500 kPa water tensions. The microsclerotia did not germinate when sand dried at air temperature; however, they germinated at water tension of 0 kPa, although at a lower rate than the germination at the other water tensions studied. The isolated effects of water tension on the microsclerotia germination were important only when the extremes values of this factor were considered.
