Resistance of Botrytis cinerea to dicarboximide fungicides in protected crops

Dicarboximide fungicides have been used for the control of grey mould in protected crops in Crete since 1977. During the 1980 growing season a decline of their efficacy was observed. In successive surveys carried out in May 1980, February 1981 and May 1981 in 28, 10 and 13 plastic houses repectively, a considerable proportion of resistant strains was found. From each of the plastic houses sampled mostly either only resistant or only sensitive strains were isolated. In three of the plastic houses with resistant strains there was an acute disease control problem. The ED₅₀ of 15 resistant strains studied was in the area of 3·5 μg/ml vinclozolin as compared with 0·2 μg/ml for the wild type strains. The vinclozolin-resistant strains were also resistant to procymidone, iprodione, and dicloran. In most of the cases strains resistant to vinclozolin were also resistant to benomyl and strains sensitive to vinclozolin were also sensitive to benomyl. In the absence of fungicide, resistant strains grew more slowly on PDA than sensitive ones, but spores germinated equally well. Vinclozolin (0·75 mg a.i./ml) did not protect eggplant seedlings against resistant strains but gave satisfactory control of sensitive ones.