Variability and antifungal activity of Botrytis cinerea

The genus of Botrytis is a fungus that causes botrytis blight or gray mold fungal disease in much herbaceous plant. Botrytis has a several species and Botrytis cinerea is the most common among them. It can be epidemic when rainy, drizzly weather continues several days. It causes botrytis gray mold in chickpea resulted crop loss up to 95%. B. cinerea isolates were characterized in terms of cultural, morphological, physiological and pathogenic aspects and showed significantly variations on media. B. cinerea grew well at 20°C and pH 4.5, respectively. Luxuriant growth and the quickest sclerotia initiation were obtained on CDA medium. B. cinerea exhibited different reaction of highly susceptible to resistant to a set of chickpea cultivars. Among the 7 tested fungicides, Bavistin, CP-Zim, Sunphanate and Rovral were the most effective to inhibit the radial growth of B. cinerea at a lower concentration. This book would be helpful for the professional researchers, undergraduate and graduate students to determine the cultural, morphological, physiological and pathogenic variability of B. cinerea isolates and to make them some suggestions to the field levels for its appropriate management.