Indagine sulla presenza dell'endofita Neotyphodium coenophialum nelle sementi di festuca arundinacea

Tall fescue is a cool season forage and turf grass with good agronomic and ecological traits, which may be infected with the endophytic fungus Neotyphodium coenophialum. This mutualistic symbiosis offers several advantages to the host, but gives rise to animal health problems, commonly named “festucosis”. In order to assess the occurence of the endophyte in the most recent cultivars of tall fescue, seed samples from 15 forage cvs. and 17 turf cvs. have been examinated microscopically to detect the micelium by the staining method of Shelby and Dalrymple (1987). The infection was almost absent from european or italian genotypes. To be more precise, only 3 forage cultivars out of 15 have shown infection, with percentages varying between 1-78,5%, whereas in the turf types the infection resulted rather frequent, with 10 out 17 cvs. having infection values between 2 and 94,5%.