Stem bleeding of acai palm plants, caused by Ceratocystis paradoxa, in southern Bahia. In: Agrotrópica v. 29 p. 13-20, 2017.

Abstract

The growing interest for sub-products from acai palm has increased, lately, throughout Brazil. Even with the increasing growth of planted area few diseases have been reported for this crop so far, as for example, anthracnose. In 2015, during phytosanitary inspections carried out in some farms of the municipalities of Ilheus and Camacan, Bahia State (Brazil), a disease that, apparently, had not been previously described in the crop was observed. A characteristic and not so usual symptomatology, ending up in high plant mortality, was frequently observed in the affected areas. Aiming to investigate the disease causal agent, samples collected from infected plants were brought to the Plant Pathology Laboratory at the Cacao Research Center, for pathogen isolation in PDA medium. For the identification of the isolated fungus, preparations of the morphological structures were examined under an optical microscope. The predominantly isolated fungus, in all the attempts, was Ceratocystis paradoxa (anamorph Thielaviopsis paradoxa). The pathogenicity tests carried out on 12-years-old acai plants, under field conditions, showed that both phases of the fungus were pathogenic to the inoculated plants, with no difference, in terms of symptomatology. The reproduction of the disease symptoms on inoculated plants and the re-isolation of the pathogen in PDA medium, have proved that Ceratocystis paradoxa (=T. paradoxa) is the causal agent of the disease observed on the acai palm plants.