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Synergy between fungal endophytes improves fruit production in strawberry cultivar

Strawberries are important global soft-fruit crop, but optimal production is constrained by the diseases and chemical treatments. Grey mould disease, caused by the pathogen Botrytis cinerea, is a devastating pathogen of strawberry crops worldwide. In this study,we recovered fungal leaf endophytes from a wild relative of strawberry, Fragaria vesca, and tested the effect of inoculating the endophytes into plants of the strawberry cultivar, Elsanta grown in a glasshouse. The strawberry plants were either untreated or treated with endophytes, infected with B. cinerea or inoculated with both endophytes and B. cinerea. The endophytes were applied as a consortium of six strains (identified as strains of Cladosporium cladosporioides, Colletotrichum circinans, Penicillium brevicompactum and Phoma exigua). The plants treated with endophytes had a longer production period and produced a significantly greater quantity of fruits with increased weight. Compared with the controls, plants inoculated with the endophytes produced 48% more berries and a 22% greater weight of berries; plants inoculated with both endophytes and B. cinerea produced 49% more berries and a 51% greater weight of berries. While strains of each endophyte species have previously been reported to be potentially pathogenic, we have shown that the synergistic interactions between them boosted strawberry fruit production. They can be considered to act on the positive side of a mutualism-parasitism continuum. These results suggest that the endophytes have the potential to improve strawberry production in a larger scale agricultural setting and reduce the negative impact of grey mould disease.