The effect of volatile and gaseous metabolites released by germinating seeds of lentil cultivars more and less susceptible to fusariosis on the germination of spores of Mucor racemosus, Trichoderma viride, Verticillium dahliae and Botrytis cinerea was found to depend rather on the fungal genus than on the lentil cultivar. However, spores of Fusarium oxysporum reacted more sensitively during germination to the presence of exudates of both cultivars, when the more susceptible lentil displayed a stimulation, the less susceptible one an inhibition of spore germination. The greatest difference in the effect of exudates was observed in the more and less susceptible maize cultivars with respect to the germination of chlamydospores of Ustilago maydis, especially during the first hours of seed germination. Analysis of the exudates of germinating seeds showed the release of a greater amount of ethanol and methanol with acetaldehyde by the more susceptible cultivars of lentil and particularly maize.