Incomplete Cross-Resistance to Folpet and Iprodione in Botrytis cinerea from Grapevine in South Africa

The sensitivity to folpet of Botrytis cinerea isolates obtained from table grape vineyards in the Western Cape province of South Africa with a known history of dicarboximide (DC) resistance and high-schedule DC and folpet programmes was investigated. In the Simondium vineyards, 61 % of the B. cinerea isolates from Dan-hen-Hannah and 20% of the isolates from Waltham Cross were resistant to iprodione. In the Northern Paarl vineyards, 95% of the isolates from Dan-hen-Hannah and 95% of the isolates from Waltham Cross were designated resistant. In the case of the iprodione-sensitive isolates from vineyards in Simondium, folpet ECso values ranged from 4.9 to 29.1 μg/mL for the Dan-hen-Hannah and 15.0 to 43.5 μg/mL for the Waltham Cross sub-populations, respectively. Folpet ECso values of the iprodione-resistant isolates, on the other hand, ranged from 19.7 to above 100 μg/mL for the Dan-hen-Hannah subpopulation. In the Northern Paarl subpopulations, where the isolates were predominantly iprodione-resistant, folpet ECso values of the latter isolates ranged from 21.5 to above 100 μg/mL. Similar shifts in folpet sensitivity were displayed by ultra-low- and low-level DC-resistant B. cinerea isolates obtained from other regional subpopulations. The results indicated incomplete cross-resistance between iprodione and folpet. This finding suggests that early increases in DC resistance frequencies in B. cinerea, observed prior to DC application in vineyards under the high-schedule DC and folpet programmes, can be attributed to incomplete cross-resistance to these fungicides in sub-populations of the pathogen.