Articles
ANTAGONISTIC INTERACTION BETWEEN THE BIOCONTROL AGENT BLIGHTBAN C9-1 AND THE PLANT DEFENSE ELICITOR ACTIGARD
Article number
896_63
Pages
437 – 440
Language
English
Abstract
Fire blight caused by Erwinia amylovora is a destructive disease in many areas where apples are grown.
Most control methods are aimed against the blossom blight phase of the disease, but only a limited number of options are available.
Among these, the use of biological control agents (BCA) and plant defense elicitors (PDE) are actively being developed as alternatives to antibiotics such as streptomycin.
These environmentally softer alternatives to fire blight control usually have lower efficacy.
The goal of our project was to determine if the strategy of combining a BCA during bloom (BlightBan C9-1 or Bloomtime) with a PDE (Actigard) at pink stage could improve efficacy as compared to either products used alone.
Each year for 3 years (2008-2010), we compared the efficacy of the three strategies to a streptomycin program.
In addition, bacterial populations were monitored in 2009 and 2010. In general, BCA and PDE used singly had comparable efficacy to streptomycin but the combined strategy had less efficacy.
BCA populations on stigmas were similar for trees inoculated with BCA whether the PDE was applied on the trees or not.
Our initial hypothesis was that a combined BCA + PDE approach would result in disease reduction at least equivalent to BCA or PDE used individually, but our results indicate that combining these strategies results in a negative interaction despite similar colonization of BCA on pistils.
Most control methods are aimed against the blossom blight phase of the disease, but only a limited number of options are available.
Among these, the use of biological control agents (BCA) and plant defense elicitors (PDE) are actively being developed as alternatives to antibiotics such as streptomycin.
These environmentally softer alternatives to fire blight control usually have lower efficacy.
The goal of our project was to determine if the strategy of combining a BCA during bloom (BlightBan C9-1 or Bloomtime) with a PDE (Actigard) at pink stage could improve efficacy as compared to either products used alone.
Each year for 3 years (2008-2010), we compared the efficacy of the three strategies to a streptomycin program.
In addition, bacterial populations were monitored in 2009 and 2010. In general, BCA and PDE used singly had comparable efficacy to streptomycin but the combined strategy had less efficacy.
BCA populations on stigmas were similar for trees inoculated with BCA whether the PDE was applied on the trees or not.
Our initial hypothesis was that a combined BCA + PDE approach would result in disease reduction at least equivalent to BCA or PDE used individually, but our results indicate that combining these strategies results in a negative interaction despite similar colonization of BCA on pistils.
Publication
Authors
V. Philion, V. Toussaint, A.M. Svircev, V.O. Stockwell
Keywords
biological and chemical control, fire blight, apple
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