The antimicrobial action of chitosan against several phytopathogens in agriculture has been tested, including Penicillium digitatum, which is the major pathogen that causes postharvest decay of oranges. However, the biopolymer action has not been tested against other fungi that are capable of developing molds in orange fruit. This study have demonstrated that chitosan is able to inhibit the growth in vitro and in vivo of two Penicillium species, which were isolated from decay oranges fruit and identified as Penicillium citrinum and Penicillium mallochii, using molecular methods. This is the first report of P. mallochii acting as an orange phytopathogen. The commercial chitosan with higher molecular weight demonstrated a reduction in the disease incidence of 50-70 % for the inoculum P. citrinum and of 40 % for the inoculum P. mallochii for the in vivo experiments. The data obtained opens interesting alternative options to synthetic fungicide to prevent orange decay caused by the potential phytopathogenic species of Penicillium here identified.

中文翻译：

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柠檬青霉和马氏青霉：橙色水果的新植物病原体及其使用壳聚糖的控制。

已测试了壳聚糖对农业中几种植物病原体的抗菌作用，包括指状青霉（Penicillium digitatum），它是导致橙子采后腐烂的主要病原体。但是，该生物聚合物的作用尚未针对能够在橙色水果上发霉的其他真菌进行过测试。这项研究表明，壳聚糖能够抑制两种青霉菌的体外和体内生长，这两种青霉菌是用分子方法从腐烂橙果实中分离出来的，并鉴定为柠檬青霉和马洛青霉。这是P. Mallochii作为橙色植物病原体的首次报道。具有较高分子量的市售壳聚糖证明接种物P. citrinum的发病率降低了50-70％，接种物P.的发病率降低了40％。Mallochii用于体内实验。获得的数据为合成杀真菌剂提供了有趣的替代选择，以防止由此处鉴定的潜在青霉菌致病物种引起的橙黄色腐烂。