The objective of this work was to develop a method to inoculate seeds of soybean
with Colletotrichum truncatum, Phomopsis sojae and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, so as to obtain
infected seeds using water restriction technology. The work consisted of exposing seeds to growing
colonies of the fungi on PDA medium amended with mannitol at concentrations producing osmotic
potentials of 0.0; -0.4; -0.6; -0.8 and -1.0MPa. Seeds were placed on developing fungal colonies
on PDA medium for different periods of incubation at 25oC. After each incubation period seeds
were removed from the Petri dishes and submitted to germination, emergency and seed health
testings. Inoculation of seeds at higher osmotic potentials presented the highest levels of diseased
seedlings without affecting adversely the germination of seeds. During the exposition of seeds to
the fungi, radicle protrusion from seeds was impeded by water restriction at the highest potentials.