Native Durians for Root Rot Tolerant Rootstock

Abstract

Seventy seven native durain clones were either collected as seeds or bud wood from the Eastern and Southern of Thailand and grown at Chanthaburi Horticulture Research Centre during October 1997 to September 2001. The Preliminary screening for resistance against root rot disease, caused by Phytopthora palmivora (Butl.) Butler, was examined by detached leaf inoculation with Monthong aand Charian, as the susceptible and resistant check cultivars respectively. It was found that degree of disease resistance among cultivars could not be differentiated by this method. As a result, seedlings of one year old namely. Thongdaeng cultivar grown from bud wood, was tested by under-bark inoculation method and showed resistant to P. palmivora. There were other sixteen cultivars potentially tolerated to the disease as the lesions on the stems healed themselves after one month of infection. The use of these resistant and tolerant cultivars as rootstocks could be fit in well with an alternative strategy for long term protection of root not disease of durian.