POSTHARVEST BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL CONTROL OF Fusarium stilboides ON BELL PEPPER (Capsicum annuum L.)

Greenhouse production of fruits and vegetables in Mexico has increased from 721 ha in 1996 to 9,500 ha in 2009. A fungal disease caused by Fusarium stilboides has recently appeared in pepper (Capsicum annum L.) that affects the fruit peduncle in the postharvest period. An alternative means of reducing the damage caused by this fungus is the use of biological control methods. To assess the antagonistic capacity of yeast strains of different origin to control F. stilboides and compare them with chemical methods, pepper fruits were inoculated with a known yeast suspension (107 CFU•mL-1) and a spore suspension of F. stilboides (105 CFU•mL-1), or they were immersed in different fungicidal solutions (benomyl, captan, sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate) at various concentrations and then inoculated with the fungal spore suspension. Benomyl at 0.6 g.L-1 showed the highest severity-inhibition level on the peduncle (81 %), while sodium bicarbonate at 30 g.L-1 was the most effective on the epicarp (51 % reduction in lesion diameter). Yeasts-25b and 18-1x from apple, Avv, 5vtt (Candida incommunis) from wine veils and 3d. RMA3 from pepper reduced lesion diameter on the epicarp by 63, 54, 53, 47 and 45 % respectively.