Fusarium

From: John Mortensen denko at pinehillzendo.org> on 2002.10.25 at 12:43:17(9581) Speaking of fusarium - has any of you tried "RootShield" or "Mycostop" on Amorphs (or other aroids for that matter)? John +More At 07:36 PM 10/24/2002 +0200, you wrote: Guys, this is probably the result of Fusarium infection. Fusarium settles in the oputer layers of the tuber and prohibits that layer from growing as fast as it should, hence the inner part of the tuber sort of "bursts" through the suboptimal outer layer.

From: "Bryant, Harry E." HEBryant at scj.com> on 2002.10.25 at 16:35:24(9582) Fellow plant lovers, For the short time I have been involved with the aroid world I have heard a loud and consistent outcry regarding the horrors of unwanted fungi growing and doing their dirty deeds to the plants we love. As part of an ongoing search for ways of controlling fungi I have found that there may be some very interesting ways other than resorting to traditional chemical fungicide controls. There may be an alternative to this course of action that are not yet in common practice. Bio-control, the notion of using one microorganism to control another is a relatively new concept. Microbes are extremely adaptable organisms in their ability to metabolize unwanted chemicals in our environment, produce inhibitory by-products, or actually invade, and kill other organisms. These attributes have been used successfully in bio-remediation of chemical spills and control of unwanted agricultural pests. New approaches to the control of unwanted organisms, whether they are bacteria, fungi, algae, nematodes, or insects may be found in the natural microbial world itself. Let's use nature to control nature, one microbe to control another. The mechanisms may be simply one organism eating another, or may be a complex string of events that results in the death of the unwanted organism. There are products on the market that claim to do exactly this. The data supporting those claims is often convincing. What I propose is that bio-control agents could be applied at the time of planting or possibly as a dusting of a tuber once an infection is apparent, or as a prophylactic control measure if a mycosis is suspected. These bugs would set up house keeping in the soil and would inhibit invasion of the tubers and roots of our plants or would invade existing fungal infection. One example of this being done already is the control of a fungus that wrecks golf greens. This has been done using a product that is a Bacillus subtilis variant. The results are striking. Without going into a lot of detail here I will point those of you who are interested in the direction one possible product (not an endorsement). There are others. This was picked because it is a commercialized product. It is called, Serenade(tm) Biofungicide, http://www.agraquest.com/serenade/sermain.html. Here you'll find some results on onion, http://www.agraquest.com/serenade/pdfs/Serenade%20jpegs/onions1.jpg Look at some of the results against agricultural pests and you may get excited about the prospects of expanding this technology to the hobby world. I think you'll find that a web search for "bio-control" will yield many other hits that are equally exciting. Sorry for the length of this post, but I do tend to get on a soapbox occasionally. Respectfully, Harry Bryant +More -----Original Message----- Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 7:43 AM To: aroid-l@lists.ncsu.edu Subject: [aroid-l] Fusarium Speaking of fusarium - has any of you tried "RootShield" or "Mycostop" on Amorphs (or other aroids for that matter)? John At 07:36 PM 10/24/2002 +0200, you wrote: >Guys, this is probably the result of Fusarium infection. Fusarium settles in >the oputer layers of the tuber and prohibits that layer from growing as fast >as it should, hence the inner part of the tuber sort of "bursts" through the >suboptimal outer layer.

From: John Mortensen denko at pinehillzendo.org> on 2002.10.27 at 15:09:16(9586) I am trying "Mycostop" (Streptomyces griseoviridis K61) on some Amorph tubers. This fungus is supposed to outmaneuver Fusarium and other damaging fungi. I will let you all know how it goes. John +More At 11:35 AM 10/25/2002 -0500, you wrote: Fellow plant lovers, For the short time I have been involved with the aroid world I have heard a loud and consistent outcry regarding the horrors of unwanted fungi growing and doing their dirty deeds to the plants we love. As part of an ongoing search for ways of controlling fungi I have found that there may be some very interesting ways other than resorting to traditional chemical fungicide controls. There may be an alternative to this course of action that are not yet in common practice. Bio-control, the notion of using one microorganism to control another is a relatively new concept. Microbes are extremely adaptable organisms in their ability to metabolize unwanted chemicals in our environment, produce inhibitory by-products, or actually invade, and kill other organisms. These attributes have been used successfully in bio-remediation of chemical spills and control of unwanted agricultural pests. New approaches to the control of unwanted organisms, whether they are bacteria, fungi, algae, nematodes, or insects may be found in the natural microbial world itself. Let's use nature to control nature, one microbe to control another. The mechanisms may be simply one organism eating another, or may be a complex string of events that results in the death of the unwanted organism. There are products on the market that claim to do exactly this. The data supporting those claims is often convincing.

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