The colonization of weed roots by strains of biovars 1, 2 and 3 of Ralstonia solanacearum was evaluated in vitro and in greenhouse conditions. In vitro, seed dormancy was broken, disinfested and sown in modified Murashige & Skoog (MS) culture medium in test tubes. The bacteria were inoculated by transferring a portion of the mass on the MS medium adjacent to the seedlings. Root colonization was evaluated visually, according to the concentration of bacteria around and along the length of the roots and compared with a diagram scale with scores ranging from 1 to 4. The area under the curve of root colonization (AUCRC) was calculated and analyzed. In the greenhouse, populations of six variants of the same biovars were quantified from the roots of the weeds. Plants were inoculated without wounding the roots, by pouring 100 ml of bacterial suspension (10(8) cfu/ml) per pot. Evaluation was done 35 days after inoculation, by plating diluted root extracts and counting the colonies. In the plants species studied, different symptoms and root colonization levels by the bacteria were observed. Although the two methods yielded similar results, the in vitro technique is promising as an auxiliary method of evaluation for root colonization of large numbers of botanic species by different strains of R. solanacearum.
