A diagrammatic scale was developed to standardize severity assessments of anthracnose on yellow passion fruit, caused by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides. The scale was elaborated considering the maximum and minimum limits of disease severity. The percentile values for anthracnose symptoms followed logarithmic increments (1, 3, 8, 21, 44 e 70%). To validate the scale, ten raters (five inexperienced and five experienced) quantified the disease severity, without and using the scale, of 50 fruits with anthracnose symptoms. Assessments with the diagrammatic scale had higher precision and accuracy for majority of raters, besides being more reproducible among raters. The proposed diagrammatic scale was considered adequate to estimate anthracnose severity in yellow passion fruits and could be used in epidemiological and control studies.
Passiflora edulis; Colletotrichum; pathometry
