| Abstract Detail
Plant Protection Wharton, Phillip, S [1], Berry, Devan, R [1], Schafer, Robert [1], Kirk, William, W [1], Tumbalam, Pavani [1]. Control of seed-borne tuber diseases with Biofungicides and Commercial Storage Products. POTATOES are susceptible to a variety of storage pathogens, including late blight (Phytophthora infestans), Fusarium dry rot (Fusarium sambucinum), Pythium leak (Pythium ultimum), tuber soft rot (Erwinia spp), and silver scurf (Helminthosporium solani). Current recommendations for potato storage diseases include sanitation and exclusion as the primary controls for these pathogens in storage facilities. No fungicides are registered for direct application to tubers for control of these important pathogens and few compounds are available for potato tuber treatment in storage, including chlorine-based disinfectants such as, sodium hypochlorite, calcium hypochlorite and chlorine dioxide. In recent years several new biofungicides based on the biocontrol bacteria Bacillus subtilis Serenade) and B. pumilis (Sonata) have been registered or are awaiting EPA approval for use on potato, and have shown promise in the control of seed and soil borne diseases such as late blight, black scurf and pink rot. None of these products has been evaluated for the control of these pathogens under post-harvest potato tuber storage conditions. However, B. subtilis has been successfully used to control post-harvest fruit rots. Thus, studies were initiated to evaluate the efficacy of these biofungicides for the control of potato storage pathogens under post-harvest conditions. For a comparison, several commercial storage products [Phostrol (sodium, potassium and ammonium phosphates), and Oxidate (hydrogen dioxide)] and experimental treatments [Amistar (azoxystrobin) and Zoxium(zoxamide)] were evaluated for their effectiveness under storage conditions. Preliminary results show that in general for all diseases except Fusarium and Pythium, there were no significant differences among any treatments and the untreated inoculated control. For Fusarium, low rate Serenade, Sonata and Zoxium were significantly different from the untreated control. For Pythium, only Amistar provided effective disease control.
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Related Links:
Michigan Potato Diseases Website
1 - Michigan State University, Plant Pathology, 35 Plant Biology Building, Wilson Road, East Lansing, MI, 48824, United States
Keywords:
none specified
Session: Poster-17
Location: Ballroom CD/Monona Terrace
Date: Tuesday, July 25th, 2006
Time: 8:00 AM
Abstract ID:254 |
