RESEARCH ARTICLE Resistance of Conilon coffee cultivar Vitoria Incaper 8142 to Meloidogyne paranaensis under field conditions Sônia Maria de Lima Salgado 1 , Bárbhara Joana dos Reis Fatobene 1, * , Marcela Pedroso Mendes- Resende 2 , Willian César Terra 3 , Vania Aparecida Silva 1 and Inorbert de Melo Lima 4 1 Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária de Minas Gerais, Campus da Universidade Federal de Lavras, P.O. Box 176, 37000-200, Lavras, MG, Brasil, 2 Universidade Federal de Goiás, Escola de Agronomia, Setor de Melhoramento de Plantas, P.O. Box 131, 74690-900, Goiânia, GO, Brasil, 3 Universidade Federal de Lavras, Departamento de Fitopatologia, 37200-000, Lavras, MG, Brasil and 4 Instituto Capixaba de Pesquisa, Assistência Técnica e Extensão Rural, 29052-010, Vitória, ES, Brasil *Corresponding author. Email: barbhara.fatobene@gmail.com (Received 24 September 2018; revised 08 March 2019; accepted 27 May 2019) Abstract Meloidogyne paranaensis is responsible for considerable losses in coffee production. Because of the distri- bution of this species in the main Coffea arabica producing regions, there is a need for management prac- tices to ensure the sustainability of coffee production. In this work, we evaluated the agronomic performance of resistant clones of the Conilon coffee cultivar Vitoria Incaper 8142 in areas infested by M. paranaensis in the west region of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Clones 2V, 3V, and 6V presented the lowest number of nematodes per gram of roots and were considered resistant to M. paranaensis. All other clones were considered tolerant to this nematode, and one had good vegetative growth but allowed nematode reproduction. Clones of Vitoria Incaper 8142 of C. canephora represent an alternative to coffee production in areas infested by M. paranaensis including areas traditionally cultivated with C. arabica. Keywords: Root-knot nematodes; Coffea canephora; Genetic resistance Introduction Root-knot nematodes (RKNs) are recognized as major agricultural pathogens, causing expressive losses in many crops (Jones et al., 2013). Among several species that parasitize coffee plants, Meloidogyne paranaensis (Carneiro et al., 1996) is especially important, hindering plant growth and causing losses of approximately 35% in yield (Lopez-Lima et al., 2015). The damage can be even higher depending on the level of attack and on the genetic variability within nematode population (Santos et al., 2018). M. paranaensis is widely spread in Coffea arabica and C. canephora coffee growing areas in Brazil and other Latin American countries (Barros et al., 2011; Barros et al., 2014; Villain et al., 2013). The alarming rise in the occurrence of this nematode in Minas Gerais State (Castro et al., 2003; Castro et al., 2008; Salgado et al., 2015), the largest C. arabica-producing state in Brazil, requires management practices to ensure the sustainability of coffee production in these areas. The use of resistant cultivars is the best way to cultivate coffee plants in soils infested by RKNs. While most of C. arabica cultivars are susceptible to M. paranaensis, C. canephora shows genetic variability in their resistance to this nematode species (Bertrand et al., 2000; Fatobene et al., 2018). Some clones of Conilon coffee cultivar Vitoria Incaper 8142 of C. canephora exhibited multiple resistance to M. exigua, M. incognita, and M. paranaensis (Lima et al., 2015) under controlled conditions. Because Conilon coffee is recommended for regions at low altitudes, the goal of this © Cambridge University Press 2019. Experimental Agriculture (2019), 1–6 doi:10.1017/S0014479719000188 available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0014479719000188 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universidade Federal de Lavras, on 02 Aug 2019 at 18:35:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use,