Biocontrol Efficacy Among Strains of Pochonia chlamydosporia Obtained from a Root-Knot Nematode Suppressive Soil.

Three Pochonia chlamydosporia var. chlamydosporia strains were isolated from a Meloidogyne incognita-suppressive soil, and then genetically characterized with multiple Pochonia-selective typing methods based on analysis of ß-tubulin, rRNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS), rRNA small subunit (SSU), and enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC) PCR. All strains exhibited different patterns with the ERIC analysis. Strains 1 and 4 were similar with PCR analysis of ß-tubulin and ITS. The strains' potential as biological control agents against root-knot nematodes were examined in greenhouse trials. All three P. chlamydosporia strains significantly reduced the numbers of nematode egg masses. When chlamydospores were used as inoculum, strain 4 reduced egg numbers on tomato roots by almost 50%, and showed effects on the numbers of J2 and on nematode-caused root-galling. A newly developed SSU-based PCR analysis differentiated strain 4 from the others, and could therefore potentially be used as a screening tool for identifying other effective biocontrol strains of P. chlamydosporia var. chlamydosporia.

Investigations into peach seedling stunting caused by a replant soil.

Replant diseases often occur when pome and stone fruits are grown in soil that had previously been planted with the same or similar plant species. They typically lead to reductions in plant growth, crop yield and production duration. In this project, greenhouse assays were used to identify a peach orchard soil that caused replant disease symptoms. Biocidal treatments of this soil led to growth increases of Nemaguard peach seedlings. In addition, plants grown in as little as 1% of the replant soil exhibited reduced plant growth. These results suggest that the disease etiology has a biological component. Analysis of roots from plants exhibiting various levels of replant disease symptoms showed little difference in the amounts of PCR-amplified bacterial or fungal rRNA genes. However, analysis using a stramenopile-selective PCR assay showed that rRNA genes from this taxon were generally more abundant in plants with the smallest top weights. Nucleotide sequence analysis of these genes identified several phylotypes belonging to Bacillariophyta, Chrysophyceae, Eustigmatophyceae, Labyrinthulida, Oomycetes, Phaeophyceae and Synurophyceae. Sequence-selective quantitative PCR assays targeting four of the most abundant phylotypes showed that both diatoms (Sellaphora spp.) and an oomycete (Pythium ultimum) were negatively associated with plant top weights.