Resistance to brown rot in peach plants

Brown rot, caused by Monilinia fructicola, is the most important peach disease, especially in warm humid areas such as the production area in Southern Brazil. Genetic resistance is the most efficient way for controlling this disease, reducing production costs and environmental problems. The Bolinha cultivar, considered as resistant standard, produces fruits of low quality and is not resistant to blossom blight. The objective of this study was to find new resistance sources to brown rot. Besides Bolinha cultivar, flowers of 11 selections, fruits of 12 selections, and 20 seedlings from hybrid progenies were inoculated with a suspension of conidia of M. fructicola. The results indicated that Conserva 930 and Jubileu cultivar showed the highest levels of blossom blight resistance. Fruits of the selections Conserva 1798, Conserva 1596, Conserva 1218, and Cascata 1493 had resistance levels very similar to the ones of Bolinha cultivar after 72 hours of inoculation. However, only Conserva 1798 maintained the same performance at advanced stages of M. fructicola infection.

Monilinia fructicola; Prunus persica; blossom blight; fruit rot