Establishment of Sigatoka Disease of Bananas in the Greenhouse

Abstract

ALTHOUGH Sigatoka disease of banana has been known for a half-century and is a serious problem, in most banana-growing areas, many fundamental aspects of the disease and of the life-history of the causal organism, Mycosphaerella musicola Leach (= Cercospora musae Zimm.), remain poorly understood. Present knowledge has been derived largely from field observation of the disease and pathogen and from field inoculation studies^1–4. Successful greenhouse inoculations have not been reported, although many investigators have been interested in studying the disease under controlled conditions. In the field, Sigatoka outbreaks are coincident with periods of wet, humid weather^1,2, and laboratory investigations have shown that conidia of C. musae must be immersed in a water film for germination to occur². Failure to obtain adequate humidity and/or moisture films on the leaf surface may account for the lack of reported greenhouse studies of this disease.