Resumen:
The gladiolus (Gladiolus grandiflorus L.) is the most important ornamental produced in open fields in Mexico State. Its most serious problem is wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum sp. gladioli, which can deplete production by up to 100%. The use of resistant cultivars is one alternative for disease management. When no such cultivars are available, irradiation can be an effective method to produce them. The objective of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity to wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. gladioli of outstanding gladiolus cultivars of the Blanca Borrega variety obtained by irradiation with Co60. The experiment was carried out at the Facultad de Ciencias Agrícolas in 2020–2021. We evaluated second- and third-generation plants of outstanding cultivars of Blanca Borrega variety gladiolus at doses of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 Gy, as well as a non-irradiated control derived from in vitro cultivation. The corms were planted in sterile soil and in soil inoculated with 5.4x104 Fusarium conidia, in a completely random design under greenhouse conditions. We recorded disease incidence and severity, plant mortality, and corm mummification during storage. An analysis of variance was carried out using PROC GLM in the program SAS, means were compared using the LSD test with α=0.05%, and the area under the curve of disease progression was quantified using the program R. The cultivars evaluated expressed different degrees of resistance; cultivars from 80, 90 and 100 Gy were categorized as highly resistant, with a severity level class of 0, plant mortality and corm mummification <15%, and the lowest area under the curve. The control and the 40 and 60 Gy cultivars expressed the highest susceptibility.