Altering Transplantation Time to Avoid Periods of High Temperature Can Efficiently Reduce Bacterial Wilt Disease Incidence with Tomato.

Tomato bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum bacterium is a severe problem in Southern China, where relatively high environmental temperatures commonly prevails during the crop seasons. Previous research has indicated that bacterial wilt disease incidence generally increases during the warm months of summer leading to reduced tomato yield. Moreover, the efficacy of bio-organic fertilizers (BOFs)-organic compost fortified with pathogen-suppressive bacteria-is often lost during the periods of high environmental temperatures. Here we studied if the disease incidence could be reduced and the BOF performance enhanced by simply preponing and postponing the traditional seedling transplantation times to avoid tomato plant development during periods of high environmental temperature. To this end, a continuous, two-year field experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of BOF in two traditional (late-spring [LS] and early-autumn [EA]) and two alternative (early-spring [ES] and late-autumn [LA]) crop seasons. We found that changing the transplantation times reduced the mean disease incidence from 33.9% (LS) and 54.7% (EA) to 11.1% (ES) and 7.1% (LA), respectively. Reduction in disease incidence correlated with the reduction in R. Solanacearum pathogen density in the tomato plant rhizosphere and stem base. Applying BOF during alternative transplantation treatments improved biocontrol efficiency from 43.4% (LS) and 3.1% (EA) to 67.4% (ES) and 64.8% (LA). On average, the mean maximum air temperatures were positively correlated with the disease incidence, and negatively correlated with the BOF biocontrol efficacy over the crop seasons. Crucially, even though preponing the transplantation time reduced the tomato yield in general, it was still economically more profitable compared to LS season due to reduced crop losses and relatively higher market prices. Preponing and postponing traditional tomato transplantation times to cooler periods could thus offer simple but effective way to control R. solanacearum disease outbreaks.

[Screening, identification, and biocontrol effect of antagonistic bacteria against Phytophthora capsici].

A total of 98 isolates with antagonistic activity against Phytophthora capsici were isolated from the rhizosphere soil of healthy pepper plants in the fields seriously infected by pepper Phytophthora capsicit, and two strains named as HL-3 and LZ-8 were screened, which had the characteristics of wide-spectrum antagonism and good growth under poor soil condition. The HL-3 and LZ-8 were identified as Paenibacillus polymyxa and Bacillus pumilus, respectively, based on their morphological and biochemical characteristics and 16S rDNA sequences. The two strains could inhibit the mycelium growth of P. capsici, and the inhibitory effect of HL-3 and LZ-8 was 72% and 68%, respectively. The two strains also had antifungal activities toward other plant pathogens such as Verticillium dahliae, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum, F. oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum, Rhizoctonia solani, Phtophthora parasitica var. nicotiana, and Ralstonia solanacearum. Pot experiment showed that the biocontrol effects of HL-3 and LZ-8 against P. capsici at the seedling stage of pepper were 72% and 83%, respectively, and both of the strains had significant growth-promoting effect on pepper plants.