Selection of biological control agents against tom

Authors: R Castaño C Borrero M I Trillas M Avilés

Publish Date: 2012/07/03

Volume: 58, Issue: 1, Pages: 105-116

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Abstract

Two biological control practices are the use of suppressive growing media and the application of biological control agents BCAs The goals of this study were i to screen 584 potential BCAs obtained from Fusarium wilt FW suppressive growing media ii to evaluate in greenhouse conditions selected BCAs in three growing media with different degrees of suppressiveness of tomato FW Two isolates selected after screening were identified as Fusarium solani 305 and Streptomyces sp A19 Results showed that tomato FW was reduced and total production was improved when both BCAs were applied to a conducive medium coir fiber In highly suppressive growing medium grape marc compost A19 and 305 inoculations did not improve suppressiveness In moderately suppressive growing medium cork compost only A19 improved this compost to natural grape marc compost suppressiveness level Therefore compost suppressiveness of tomato FW depended on the nature of the compost and on the isolates appliedThis research was supported by grants from Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia AGL200508137C0302 Consejería de Innovación Ciencia y Empresa de la Junta de Andalucía P06AGR02313 and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación AGL200805414C0301 of Spain We thank ML Castillo S Castillo and J Rojo for their excellent technical assistance

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