Factors involved in asparagus decline and effects of control techniques on survival, growth and production

Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) is grown in 13,755 ha in Spain, 70% are concentrated in Andalusia.
In recent years, the syndrome of asparagus plantation decline, that causes premature death of plants, has been increasingly extended, also negatively affecting possible replanting.
This entails serious economic losses in the sector.
The objectives of this work were, on the one hand verify the existence of abiotic substances cited in the literature as co-causative of the syndrome and, on the other, to analyze the effect of three possible control techniques, quantifying plant growth and production of asparagus spears.
For the first objective, isolated containers were tested with: a) soil where there had never been cultivated asparagus (T1), b) soil with asparagus cultivation and decline syndrome, subsequently disinfested (T2), and c) soil with asparagus cultivation and decline syndrome (T3). The techniques applied to fulfill the second objective were soil disinfestation with dazomet, biofumigation with brassica pellet and biofumigation with chicken manure pellet.
In the test in isolated containers there were already large losses of plants in the second year of vegetative growth (2019) with values of 33% in T2, 12% in T3 versus only 3% in T1. As a consequence, both the LAI (3.2, 2.3 and 1.5 for T1, T2 and T3, respectively) and the radiation interception (78, 69 and 43%) were significantly higher in T1. Production values were significantly different from the third cut onwards, with a reduction in production of almost 50% in treatments with decline symptoms.
As for the test of control strategies, the effectiveness of the three control techniques is verified, especially biofumigation with brassica pellet, which increased plant growth parameters during the vegetative period and production (34% in solarization with dazomet concerning the control). However, it would be necessary to monitor the evolution in the following years.

IV International Symposium on Horticulture in Europe – SHE2021

F.J. López-Moreno, J.M. Ruiz, B. Blasco, M. de Cara, E. Navarro-León, T. Soriano

Asparagus officinalis, decline syndrome, Fusarium sp., allelopathic substances, biosolarization

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2021.1327.29