Winter hardiness of plants is limited mainly due to sensibility to Iow temperature and winter fungus damages. Snow mould is a disease that affects many species of winter cereals, turf and forage grasses. In Poland it is caused mainly by the common and economically important fungal pathogen Microdochium nivale causing pink snow mould, destructive disease of seedlings, stem bases and ears. The aim of the study was to investigate the dynamie of Microdochium nivale infection and cytological changes in cold-hardened Lolium perenne Danish cv. Darius. Plants were inoculated with mycelium. The studied plants demonstrated fast defence response to fungus attack, accumulating phenolics already one day after inoculation, however no infecting hyphae within leaf tissue at this time were detected. The first infection hyphae in plants were observed two days after inoculation. Microscopy observations revealed sheaths of the youngest leaves located in the crowns as the main infection way. These observations showed that Microdochium nivale hyphae uptake nutrients from the host by haustoria damaging the protoplasts of mesophyll cells causing their strong plasmolysis. This type of feeding is characteristic for biotrophic and hemibiotrophic parasites. Our observation proved that Microdochium nivale is a hemibiotrophic pathogen and inoculation with its mycelium is very effective and fast and causes serious damages of Lolium perenne cells.
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