Effects of artificial inoculation methods on infection of the maize grains by Curvularia lunata

The influence of three inoculation periods and four inoculation methods on infection of the maize grains by Curvularia lunata were studied in this paper.The results indicated that C.lunata could infect the grains of maize and caused brown spots in the grains.Both wound inoculation and silk injection inoculation caused infection of maize grains but the incidence of infection by wound inoculation(100%) was higher than that by silk injection inoculation.However,the grains of maize could not be infected by either silk spraying inoculation or bract spraying inoculation.Among the three inoculation periods,the inoculations in 10 days after spin silking and during the milk stage caused the disease only in inoculated grains and the pathogens rarely spread.However,the inoculation during the grain-filling period caused the disease of the inoculated grains and their surrounding grains and the pathogens spread well.The above results showed that the best inoculation method was the wound inoculation during grain-filling period.