Speaker: Amisha Poret-Peterson is a Research Microbiologist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service Crops Pathology and Genetics Research Unit in Davis, CA.
Control of soil-borne plant pathogens has relied heavily on the use of pre-plant soil fumigation. Increasing restrictions on the use of chemical fumigants has necessitated the use of sustainable alternatives pathogen control. Most alternative strategies are organic amendment-based such as anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD), which involves adding a carbon source to soil, irrigating soil to field capacity, and covering soil with a gas impermeable tarp to induce conditions that reduce plant pathogen populations. ASD is used in a variety of cropping systems and has show efficacy against a broad range of soil-borne plant pathogens. Despite this, there still remains a need to improve its implementation by identifying cost-effective carbon substrates and more fully understand its modes of action, and post-ASD effects on soil chemical properties and microbial communities.
This talk presented findings on alternative carbon substrates for ASD and the survival of Fusarium oxysporum in ASD-treated soils.
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