Dos enfermedades producidas por Cephalosporium en café y en citrus en El Salvador

Abstract

Two coffee diseases were investigated at the Centro Nacional de Agronomía of El Salvador, which have been familiar to the coffee grower for some time: the so-called "mal de macana" and a form of die back of the branches. As a result of the operation of weed controlling in the coffee plantation, several trees might be inadvertently cut at the collar line. Then a pathogen enters through these cuts; several stages of infection occur and eventually the entire tree dies. From the diseased tissue a Cephalosporium is consistently isolated. Apparently, the pathogen comes from the twigs, where the disease is inocuous. Presumably, C. deformans is the species involved. In Branch-die-back, a different Cephalosporium was isolated producing similar symptoms to the preceeding organism, except it has been found only in the branches. C. omnivorium sp. nov seem to be the causal agent. Description is made of both pathogens