Statistic assignment of Fusarium oxysporum f sp. melonis strains to races 0, 1, 2, and 1-2

Cultivars and differential genotypes of muskmelon were artificially inoculated with isolates belonging to the physiological races 0, 1, 2, 1-2y and 1-2w of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. melonis and 31 isolates of the same forma specialis from Northern Italy. The results showed that: cultivars Aril, Delada and Supermarket can be used in pathogenicity tests instead of the differential genotypes because they have the same reaction to infection; the best separation of fungal isolates into the five races was achieved after thirty days after inoculation, when almost all the plants of the susceptible cultivar had been affected; multivariate statistical analyses (i.e. cluster and discriminant analyses) assign isolates to the right race more reliably than the empirical criteria commonly used