The usefulness of sclerotia morphology traits and mycelial growth rate to infer phenotypic variability in populations of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum associated with common beans in Minas Gerais State (MG) was assessed in two experiments. Isolates (131) were collected in the Northwestern, Alto Paranaíba, Zona da Mata and Southern regions of MG and the mycelial growth rate, the number, weight and dimensions (length, width and thickness) of sclerotia and mycelial pigmentation were assessed. There was a high variability among isolates, even among colonies of the same isolate. The variance of the first experiment for the mycelial growth rate, number, weight, length, width and thickness of sclerotia, were 0.01, 190.15, 0.01, 0.62, 0.12 and 0.05, whereas in the second, the variances were 0.01, 28.48, 0.002, 0.18, 0.06 and 0.03, respectively. Most correlations between traits were of low magnitude except that between length and width (r = 0.84, 'P < 0.001). Regarding colony pigmentation, non-pigmented, pigmented and highly pigmented isolates were identified, but for most isolates this characteristic varied between experiments. No groups based on phenotypic traits were detected. The morphological traits evaluated in the present study are not suitable for characterization of populations of S. sclerotiorum.

This review deals with the phenomenon of plant disease interactions. The epidemiological implications of foliar diseases occurring simultaneously on the same crop are important because the establishment of disease management strategies depends on the knowledge of disease interactions. We discuss some concepts and the terminology related to the interaction studies and present related examples with special emphasis on interacting wheat diseases.