Response of peach bark tissues to inoculation with epiphytic fungi alone and in combination with Leucostoma cincta

A. R. Biggs, West Virginia University, University Experiment Farm, P.O. Box 609, Kearneysville, WV, USA, 25430; and G. R. Alm, Horticultural Research Institute of Ontario, Vineland Station, Ontario, Canada, L0R 2E0

 ABSTRACT

Biggs, A. R., and Alm, G. R. 1992. Response of peach bark tissues to inoculation with epiphytic fungi alone and in combination with Leucostoma cincta. Can. J. Bot. 70:186-191.

 Wounded peach bark was inoculated with the fungal epiphytes Alternaria alternata, Trichoderma harzianum, and Epicoccum nigrum alone and in combination with the peach canker pathogen Leucostoma cincta. Bark tissues were sampled over a time series for light and fluorescence microscope examination to determine the influence of inoculations on the ontogeny of tissues associated with wound healing, specifically the extent of formation of the polysaccharide-impregnated zone, the ligno-suberized boundary layer, and the necrophylactic (wound) periderm. None of the epiphytic fungi were associated with the formation of wound-related tissues more quickly than was observed in the noninoculated control wounds. Inoculation of wounds with T. harzianum resulted in delayed formation, but not prevention, of tissues critical to normal wound healing. Combined inoculations of L. cincta and epiphytes resulting in wound healing similar to the epiphyte alone was observed consistently. Inoculation of wounds with E. nigrum alone, or in combination with L. cincta, did not cause any deleterious effects on the wound responses examined in this study.