American Journal of Plant Sciences, 2020, 11, 64-79 https://www.scirp.org/journal/ajps ISSN Online: 2158-2750 ISSN Print: 2158-2742 DOI: 10.4236/ajps.2020.111006 Jan. 17, 2020 64 American Journal of Plant Sciences Determination of Fusarium Species Associated with Onion Plants (Allium cepa) in Field in Burkina Faso Causing Damping-Off and Bulb Rots Konwende Raïssa Kintega 1,2* , P. Elisabeth Zida 1 , Romain Soalla 1 , Vianney W. Tarpaga 1 , Philippe Sankara 2 , Paco Sereme 1 1 Laboratoire de phytopathologie Institute de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA), Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 2 UniversitéJoseph Ki-ZERBO, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Abstract Onion (Allium cepa L.) is the second most important vegetable crop in Burki- na Faso and provides an important source of income for those involved in the sector. However, producers are facing significant pre-harvest and post-harvest losses. To date, knowledge of major diseases of the crop is limited, limiting the development of effective control strategies. The objective of this study was to test the pathogenicity of some species of Fusarium. To this end, 33 fungal iso- lates collected from onion plants in 17 localities and belonging to five Fusa- rium species were used to inoculate onion seeds and bulbs to determine the pathogenic species responsible for damping-off on seedlings and basal bulb rot in Burkina Faso. The virulence of pathogenic isolates was determined accord- ing to the percentages of seedling damping-off evaluated 28 Days After Sow- ing, and the extent of rot in millimetres on inoculated bulbs. The evaluation of isolates on seedlings revealed that the most pathogenic isolates belong to the species F. proliferatum (I29, I21, I37, I33, I31), F. thapsinum (I35) and F. sola- ni (I38) which resulted in 58.33% - 70.83% of seedling damping-off. The most pathogenic isolates on bulbs belong to the species F. proliferatum (I4, I29, I32) and F. oxysporum (I52, I50, I16) which caused 21.67 to 25 mm of rot on bulbs. Isolate I29 was very virulent on both seedlings and bulbs. The isolates of F. fu- jikuroi species were all low pathogenic on seedlings but one of them, (I27), expressed average pathogenicity on bulbs. Keywords Fungal Pathogen, Violet de Galmi, Fusarium, Seedling Damping-Off, Bulb Rots How to cite this paper: Kintega, K.R., Zida, P.E., Soalla, R., Tarpaga, V.W., San- kara, P. and Sereme, P. (2020) Determina- tion of Fusarium Species Associated with Onion Plants (Allium cepa) in Field in Burkina Faso Causing Damping-Off and Bulb Rots. American Journal of Plant Sciences, 11, 64-79. https://doi.org/10.4236/ajps.2020.111006 Received: December 16, 2019 Accepted: January 14, 2020 Published: January 17, 2020 Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access