Selección de aislados fúngicos de Buenos Aires, Argentina, como agentes de control biológico de Botrytis cinerea y Sclerotinia sclerotiorum

This work aimed to select promising microorganisms as biological control agents (BCA).Forty-one soil samples were obtained from florihorticultural farms located in Buenos Aires,Argentina. Insect trap techniques and soil serial dilutions were used to obtain isolatesof entomopathogenic fungi and fungi of genera Trichoderma, respectively. A total of 20isolates included five Metarhizium and 15 Trichoderma. The isolates were lyophilized anddeposited as reference cultures in the Mycological Collection of the Centro de EstudiosParasitológicos y de Vectores (CEPAVE). We performed dual culture studies of the isolatescollected against the pathogens Botrytis cinerea Pers. (1797) and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum(Lib.) de Bary (1884). Eleven isolates were selected for growth promotion studies intomato plants (Solanum lycopersicum L.). The isolates of Metarhizium taii Liang & Liu(1991) CEP-722, CEP-723 Trichoderma afroharzianum Chaverri, Rocha, Degenkolb &Druzhinina (2015) CEP-753 and CEP-754, molecularly identified by amplification ofthe ITS and TEF1α zones, presented the best results in the dual culture and growthpromotion tests. Subsequent studies will evaluate virulence of fungal strains in insects.