Pathogenic Fusarium on spruce seed from the Towner Nursery, North Dakota

Five seedlots of Colorado blue spruce and three seedlots of Black Hills spruce\ud were sampled for Fusarium contamination. All seedlots contained some seed\ud and/or debris with Fusarium. Levels of contamination were greatly reduced by\ud treating seed with running water rinses for 48 hours or with chemical\ud sterilants such as sodium hypochlorite (bleach), hydrogen peroxide, captan, and\ud benanyl. All three species of Fusarium commonly isolated from seed, F.\ud oxysporum, F. solani, and F. tricinctum, were pathogenic to blue spruce\ud germlings after test tube inoculations. Reducing the amount of seed\ud contamination will help reduce future losses fran pre- and post-emergence\ud damping-off