In order to know the host parasite relationship of M. enterolobii in plants with resistance to nematodes, comparative studies of the biology of M. enterolobii and M. javanica in tomato with the Mi gene were conducted. The experiment was set up in a two-by-two factorial design consisting of two varieties of tomato ('Magnet' and 'Helper M') and two species of root-knot nematodes (M. javanica and M. enterolobii) with five replicates. Plants were inoculated with 500 infective juveniles (J2) of M. enterolobii or M. javanica. The root were collected at 3, 10, 17, 24 and 31 days after inoculation, stained with acid fuchsin, and dissected on stereomicroscope in order to observe the different developmental stages of nematodes. The data were subjected to analysis of variance and means compared by Tukey test at 5% probability. The results showed that, although both species have been able to penetrate the roots of the rootstocks of tomato, only M. enterolobii was able to develop normally, with mature females carrying their egg masses, from 24 days after inoculation.
Root-knot nematodes; resistance; nematology
