Monosporic isolates of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides obtained from six cashew and mango trees multisporic isolates were characterized for colony morphology, mycelial growth on BDA, pathogenicity and isozyme analysis. The colonies of multisporic isolates presented diversity of color and aspect, but expressive morphological variations were not observed in 60 monosporic isolates compared to their respective multisporic. Only in two isolates it was possible to observe different morphologic characteristics. All the studied isolates showed good growth on BDA until six days after incubation. Some monosporic isolates obtained from four cashew and mango multisporic ones showed heterogeneous mycelial growth. Pathogenicity was the variable that best characterized the variation between monosporic and multisporic isolates of C. gloeosporioides. Different aggressiveness levels were observed among and within monosporic and multisporic isolates. In the analysis of isozymes, the electrophoretical patterns of isoesterases showed no variation among the monosporic isolates and the parental multisporic ones. The results of this work suggest that the selection of the C. gloeosporioides type isolate for studies on cashew and mango should be preceded by a comparison between monosporic and multisporic isolates based upon mycelial growth and pathogenicity.
anthracnose; monosporic; mango tree; cashew tree
