Caracterización e identificacíon de Colletotrichum fragariae en frutos de chirimoya

Colletotrichum fragariae was isolated from cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.) fruits of trees with 86% incidence of anthracnose. The fungus infected and induced anthracnose symptoms in absence of wounds in fruits and formed abundant orange-colored conidial masses in epidermal and subepidermal acervuli and on fertile setae. Acervular conidia had a cylindrical shape (15.8×3.8 μm) with rounded ends, one slimmer than the other. Those produced on setae, aggregated in grey masses, were elongate (13.7×4.5 μm) with one end rounded and the other pointed. In vitro, the fungus produced conidia on dispersed conidiophores, sporodochia, and fertile setae. Those produced on conidiophores were variable in size and shape; sporodochial conidia were uniform in size (17.2×4.4 μm) and similar to acervular conidia. The fungus also formed appressoria with variation in shape, most of them were clavate and melanized. Perithecia were not produced in potato-dextrose-agar, plain, acidified, or with 0.5% powdered milk. In the field, the ascigerous state was not found in naturally infected fruits. The ITS1 region sequence of ribosomal DNA showed 99.8% identity and 997 of similarity index with C. fragariae. Cherimoya was found as an additional host of C. fragariae.