Objective
The novelty of this project is the combined use of several well-focussed biologi cal control strategies for effective disease management of the two major aerial fungal plant pathogens (Botryt¡s cinerea and powdery mildew) of important protec ted crops (tomato and cucumber)and of grapes. The control strategies target seve ral developmental stages in the life-cycle of the pathogens that are essential f or initiation and establishment of disease. This approach is going beyond the st rategy of most other programmes in biocontrol which merely integrate single tech niques against specific pests or diseases into pest management schemes. With thi s novel idea, reliability of biological disease control strategies will be impro ved to a degree, where they can fully replace chemical pesticides. In this way p lant health will be enhanced by environment-friendly and sustainable agricultura l methods without the use of chemical fungicides.
The first step is to opti mize those biological disease control systems -
(i) plant extracts for induced resistance;
(ii) Bacillus antagonist for inhibition of conidial germination a nd
(iii) fungal antagonists to suppress pathogen growth - that individually ha ve already been shown by the project participants to effectively target developm ental stages of the pathogens and reduce the level of disease. Once optimized, t he performance of these biological methods will be determined independently in t he greenhouse and in the field, against both B. Cinerea and powdery mildew. The effect of preparation methods and environmental parameters (temperature, relativ e humidity, solar radiation, plant age and type) on the performance and the abil ity to control the pathogens will be established in vivo in order to improve the effectiveness of the individual systems. The objective then is to integrate the use of these biological methods so that more efficient disease control is achie ved. To do this the detailed physiological, biochemical and ecological interacti on of these components will be worked out in vitro, in vivo, and in situ. Specia l importance will be given to those combinations that are compatible, show addit ive or synergistic effects on disease control and are environmentally friendly w ith no adverse effects on other life-forms. Successful combinations will be perf ected by greenhouse trials (tomatoes, cucumber) under controlled monitoring of e nvironmental parameters and in field situations (grapes). The operational proced ures will be established in a way to suit as wide as possible the environmental conditions prevailing under the different climatic regimes for the participant c ountries in order to provide effective disease control for the different locatio ns. Finally, these combinations will be tested by end-user growers to determine the effectiveness and suitability of this integrated biological control strategy for use in practice. In this way the long-term objective and main goal of this work, to enhance plant health and replace the use of chemical fungicides with a more sustainable, reliable biological control procedure, should be achievable.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagricultureagronomyplant protection
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringcontrol systems
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesmeteorologysolar radiation
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Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
64287 DARMSTADT
Germany