Study of variability of an endophytic acremonium population in symptomless grapevine

The endophytism of genus Acremonium in symptomless grapevines of several cultivars, grown both in pots or in the field, is reported. The no-tillage management of tested grapevines and the lack of chemical treatments facilitated the investigation of the ecological plant-fungus interaction. The isolates were differentiated at the strain level by vegetative compatibility assay and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analyses, using a set of four oligo-nucleotide primers. The endophytic Acremonium population in the healthy grapevine object of the survey seemed to show a low variability; all the techniques agreed in grouping the Acremonium strains in three different clusters and no relationships were observed among them.