Abstract

BORGES, Jorge A  and  URDANETA, July. Effect of Fusarium Sp. in the germination, fenology and survival of Leucaena leucocephala (lam.) de wit seedling. Agronomía Trop. [online]. 2010, vol.60, n.2, pp.155-160. ISSN 0002-192X.

Seeds of Leucaena leucocephala (Lam.) of Wit is infested by diverse fungi, among which Fusarium sp. In this study it was evaluated the effect of this fungus on germination, fenology and seedling survival emerged from seeds of L. leucocephala colonized. The material was collected and taken to the laboratory where proceeded to determine the fungus, proving Fusarium sp. Seed samples were distributed in two treatments: healthy seeds (T1) and colonized seeds (T2), planted in germination trays under a completely randomized design with fi ve replications. Germination was evaluated daily and weekly the number of leaves (NL), number of nodes (NN), primary branches (PR), seedling height (SH) and absolute rate of growth (ARG). We also evaluated the survival of seedlings emerged. Highly signifi cant differences were observed for germination between treatments, with greater healthy percentage of seeds germinated (80%) in relation to the colonized by the fungus (46.6%). Phenology differences were found between T1 and T2 in NN (3.0 and 2.6), RP (2.7 and 2.4) and SH (11.10 and 10.66), respectively. The ARG for RP and NN presented a slow growing during the evaluation period. It was also noted seedling mortality in T2 associated with the symptoms of the pathogen. We conclude that Fusarium sp. has a negative effect by reducing more than 50% germination of seeds of sL. leucocephala colonized and slow growth seedlings emerged

Keywords : Fusarium sp; germination; Leucaena leucocephala (Lam.) de Wit; pathogen; phenological variables.