The exploitation of heart of palm in Brazil is no more an extractive activity; it is becoming a commercial production due to the planting of palm trees such as peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunth var. gasipaes Henderson). The stem base rot (SBR) caused by Phytophthora palmivora has emerged as an important disease, which may limit the peach palm production in many regions. This disease occurs in young and adult plants. This study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of preventive and curative application of phosphites on SBR incidence and its severity in peach palm seedlings under greenhouse conditions. Three experiments were carried out, as follows: I - preventive and curative effect of phosphites, following factorial scheme 6 x 2 (phosphites x application time); II - effect of preventive application of potassium phosphite, following factorial scheme 6 x 4 (number of applications x evaluation periods), and III - Effect of preventive and curative methods and application periods of potassium phosphite, following a factorial scheme 2 x 2 (application forms x dosage). Disease severity was assessed at 28 days in experiment I and III in the experiment, while in experiment II was evaluated at 7, 14, 21 and 28 days after inoculation, based on descriptive scale with a scale from 0 to 4. Treatments were carried out in a completely randomized design with 10 repetitions of one seedling for each repetition. Data were submitted to variance analysis and when treatment means were significant by F test (p < 0.05) they were compared by Tukey test at 5% of probability. From the results obtained, it was concluded that potassium phosphite have better control between phosphites tested, and when applied preventively at 2.5 mL.L-1 with 3 applications and dosage of 5.0 mL. L-1 with 2 or 3 applications significantly reduced the incidence and the severity of SBR in peach palm seedlings. But, when applied as curative had no effect, regardless of the dose or the number of applications. Since the best time for severity assessment of SBR was 21 days after inoculation of Phytopthora palmivora.
Bactris gasipaes Kunth; peach palm; heart of palm; Phytophthora palmivora; phytopathology
