Location: Crop Improvement and Protection Research
Project Number: 2038-22000-019-018-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Nov 1, 2020
End Date: Feb 28, 2023
Objective:
To assess multiple carbon sources for efficacy of anaerobic soil disinfestation against Macrophomina and whether volatile production contributes to this effect.
Approach:
Anaerobic soil disinfestation experiments will be conducted in plastic pots in a greenhouse. The objectives of this study are to select a suitable anaerobic soil disinfestation carbon source, to explore volatile mediated pathogen suppression by anaerobic soil disinfestation, and assess the efficacy of integration of anaerobic soil disinfestation with host resistance. The pathogen Macrophomina phaseolina will be artificially inoculated into pasteurized strawberry field soil at 100 microsclerotia per gram soil density. The soil treatments will consist of anaerobic soil disinfestation with three different carbon sources (wheat shoot residues, hay residues, and rice bran), pasteurized control, and no-treatment control. The experiment will be implemented according to randomized complete block design with ten replicates, and anaerobic soil disinfestation treatments will be incubated for one month. During incubation, three potato dextrose agar plates inoculated with Macrophomina will be placed on top of the soil surface of bagged pots to determine the effect of soil volatiles on mycelial growth of the pathogen and microsclerotia production. After incubation, bags will be removed, and pots will aerate for three weeks. Then, all treatments will be planted with a susceptible (five pots of each treatment, ‘Monterey’) and resistant (five pots of each treatment, ‘Warrior’) cultivar of strawberry. These plants will be rated for disease incidence/severity and crowns will be plated in NP-10 medium to confirm infection by Macrophomina. Plant growth performance (shoot and root dry weight) will be measured. The entire experiment will be repeated three times.
