VIEW ARTICLE

Postharvest Infection of Cottonseed by Rhizopus arrhizus, Aspergillus niger, and Aspergillus flavus. J. M. Halloin, Research Plant Physiologist, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Cotton Pathology Research Laboratory, College Station, Texas 77840; Phytopathology 65:1229-1232. Accepted for publication 23 May 1975. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-65-1229.

Infection of cottonseed (Gossypium hirsutum) by Rhizopus arrhizus, Aspergillus niger, and A. flavus was studied at 35 C and 20% seed moisture. Nine days after inoculation of seeds with Aspergillus spp., 95 to 100% of the seeds and 85 to 95% of the embryos were infected. A. flavus was the fungus most of ten isolated from either control (noninoculated) or R. arrhizus-inoculated seeds or their embryos. R. arrhizus was isolated less often as the incubation progressed to 21 days. Fungi were isolated more often from the chalazal than the micropylar ends of embryos. Infection of embryos by fungi may not be involved in all cottonseed deterioration, because fungi were not isolated from 25% of the dead embryos of control seeds.