Published in Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture, Volume LXII
Written by Oana-Alina BOIU-SICUIA, Sorina DINU, Cristina PETRIȘOR, Florica CONSTANTINESCU
The aim of the present study was to analyse the potential of two plant beneficial bacteria, Cp.b4 and 75.1s, to prevent fungal pathogens proliferation and improve tomato seedlings growth. The bacterial strains were selected from the RDIPP microbial collection, due to their antifungal activity towards solanaceous plant pathogens. Both strains were previously identified as Bacillus cereus/thuringiensis based on their biochemical profile with the Biolog GEN III system. Growth chamber tests on tomato seedlings have shown that biological treatments, with the above-mentioned bacterial strains, induced a better vegetative growth to the seedlings, and increased the photosynthetic capacity of the plants. To prevent early blight caused by Alternaria sp. in solanaceous plants, the ability to inhibit conidia germination was analysed. Biological treatments with bacterial suspension reduced the number of germinated conidia by 4.98 fold (when using 75.1s strain) and by 2.57 fold (when using Cp.b4 strain). The study also revealed that mixed treatments of bacteria suspension along with a low dose of fungicide inhibit conidia germination, being comparable with the chemical control, Mycoguard 500 SC, applied at the recommended dose of 0.2%.
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