The crater rot of melon fruits, caused by Myrothecium roridum, frequently occurs in production fields at Northeast region of Brazil and causes yield losses. It was analyzed the influence of the inoculation method (pulverization, drop deposition, pulverization with wound, drop deposition with wound, and sub epidermal injection, wound intensity (0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 10 wounds) and age (0, 3 and 6 hours), and fruit age (12, 22 and 27 days) on the severity of the crater rot in melon fruits type Yellow (cv. AF-682) and Honeydew (cv. Orange Flesh), inoculated with three M. roridum isolates (CMM-609, CMM-636 and CMM-766). The crater rot severity was influenced by the interaction among inoculation methods, pathogen isolates and melon cultivars. Pulverization or drop deposition of inoculum propitiated the biggest lesions in the fruits submitted to wounds. However, symptoms were not observed in the fruits without wounds. The inoculation with sub-epidermal injection led to smaller lesions, in spite of also to cause wound in the fruit. The disease severity increased with the increment of the wound number, reaching the maximum with 10 wounds. A tendency of reduction of the disease severity was verified in fruits with the increase of the wound age. The lesions were significantly smaller in the fruits wounded 6 hours before the inoculation than in those wounded immediately before the inoculation. The fruit age was not decisive for increasing or reducing the crater rot severity.
Cucumis melo; Myrothecium roridum; pathogenesis; inoculation; epidemiology
