association of mating-type with mycelium growth rate and genetic variability of fusarium culmorum

barley is an important crop used widely in europe for food production, feed and malting.unfortunately it is often colonised by fungi from the fusarium genus. fusarium culmorum is a global pathogen causing root rot and crown rot in small-grain cereals, resulting in a reduction in yield and grain quality. f. culmorum produces the highly toxic chemicals trichothecenes. experimental

procedures

chemotypes and mating-type idiomorphs (mat) were identified using polymerase chain reactions (pcr) and genetic diversity was determined using sequence-related amplified polymorphism (srap) and random amplified polymorphic dna (rapd). physiological features such as mycelium growth rate were also evaluated.

results

as many as 94% of isolates was classified as a 3adon producing and only two isolates displayed niv chemotype. the average growth rate at 15°c and 25°c equalled 5.32 mm/day and 13.5 mm/day, respectively. the mat idiomorph amplification revealed that 60% of isolates possessed mat1-2idiomorph. among 32 obtained srap and rapd markers, eight were associated with mycelium growth rate.

conclusions

it was shown first time that f. culmorum isolates with mat1-2 idiomorph in the genome grew slower than these with mat1-1. high level of genetic variability was determined based on amplification of srap and rapd markers.