Towards Sclerotinia resistance – In vitro screening of wild sunflower species

Abstract

This paper presents the work on testing the possibility of the use of in vitro screening for determination of wild Helianthus species resistance to Sclerotinia. For this purpose, micropropagated plants of different accessions of H. maximiliani, H. mollis, H. rigidus and H. tuberosus were grown on MS medium supplemented with 0, 0.5, 1 and 2 mM of oxalic acid. Fresh and dry weight of above-ground part, and dry weight of root could be considered as the potential parameters of wild species resistance/susceptibility to Sclerotinia in in vitro tests, as they were not affected by treatment in resistant (100%) accessions and were significantly decreased in susceptible (25%) ones in the presence of 2 mM of oxalic acid.