EndoBio

The olive tree is one of the most important crops for the Mediterranean basin countries including Portugal. The major olive diseases include the anthracnose (caused mostly by Colletotrichum acutatum J.H. Simmonds) and verticillium wilt (caused by Verticillium dahliae Kleb.), due to their high incidence and related losses. The use of fungicides has been the main control strategy adopted against both diseases. Besides not being completely effective on preventing these diseases, there are numerous environmental risks and toxicity problems associated with it. Therefore, there is a need to develop novel and environmental-friendly control strategies for management of both diseases. The endophytic fungi are a group of microorganisms with great potential to be explored as biological control agents (BCA) against these two diseases. This project intends to isolate endophytic fungi from olive cultivars with different susceptibilities to anthracnose and verticillium wilt, and select the strains with the greatest antagonistic effect against both diseases.

Project funded by FEDER through the Operational Competitiveness Program - COMPETE - and by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT.