Biocontrol agent, biofumigation, and grafting with resistant rootstock suppress soil-borne disease and improve yield of tomato in West Virginia

作者：Mahfuzur Rahman, Tofazzal Islam, Lewis W. Jett, James Kotcon · 发表于：Crop Protection · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1016/j.cropro.2021.105630 · 被引用次数：43 · 研究领域：Plant Disease Management Techniques、Nematode management and characterization studies、Plant-Microbe Interactions and Immunity

Organic tomato growers in West Virginia and neighboring states suffer serious economic losses each year due to soil-borne wilt diseases caused by fungal pathogens including Verticillium dahliae. This study determined the efficacies of biological control agents (BCAs – Serenade SOIL and Prestop), bio-fumigants and transplants grafted to a resistant rootstock in suppressing wilt disease in heirloom tomato cv. Mortgage Lifter in a certified organic production system in West Virginia in two consecutive years. Prestop and Serenade treatments resulted in higher seedling vigor at the early stage. However, within 40 days of field set in the fungal pathogen infested soil, grafted transplants (on resistant rootstock Maxifort) had the highest vigor followed by BCA treatments, biofumigation with mustard cover crop and mustard meal and was lowest in nontreated control. All treatments showed significantly lower Verticillium wilt severity index than control except mustard cover crop and Prestop in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Total fruit harvested over a six-week period indicated that yield from all but mustard cover crop treatment were significantly (P < 0.001) higher compared to the nontreated control in 2015. However, results from 2016 indicated that mustard cover crop would work best for both disease suppression and yield enhancement when tissues were well macerated and incorporated immediately in the soil and covered with impervious plastic for up to 10 days. In 2016, all treatments ex...