Diseases caused by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib) de Bary are difficult to control and cause increasing losses of horticultural crops worldwide. Reasons of this phenomenon are various: (i) the specialization of crop production that causes the accumulation of the pathogen in the soil; (ii) the lack of a safe and efficient method of soil fumigation; (iii) the specific life cycle of S. sclerotiorum with survival structures (sclerotia), resistant to chemical and biological degradation. Sclerotinia diseases depend on many environmental factors which determine sclerotia survival and ascospores dissemination, because plants are mainly infected by air-borne ascospores from carpogenic germination of sclerotia. Due to the lack of effective synthetic agents for eradication of S. sclerortiorum from soil considerable interest has been focused on biological control, especially the selection of microorganisms with mycoparasitic activity towards S. sclerotiorum sclerotia, that can decrease their number in the soil. In this work we review reports on the use of different antagonistic fungi and bacteria in the control of S. sclerotiorum and discuss the suppressive effect of organic amendments against this soil-borne pathogen.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary is considered as one of the most harmful soilborne pathogens, which reduces productivity of horticultural crops. Currently used chemical or biological methods for the eradication of S. sclerotiorum from a soil are not very effective. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of eradication of S. sclerotiorum sclerotia from a soil using the Trichoderma isolates, which were multiplied on the organic carriers prepared from agro-industrial wastes and by-products: WsA (wheat straw + apple pomaces), WsP (wheat straw + potato pulp) and T-GRAN (dry onion rind, apples and strawberry pomaces, rapeseed meal). The results showed that soil amendment with organic materials overgrown with the Trichoderma fungi had a significant reducing effect on S. sclerotiorum. Especially effective was the carrier WsA overgrown with T. virens TRS114, which completely prevented the survival of sclerotia of S. sclerotiorum regardless of the dose of application. Less effective was the WsP carrier. However, addition WsP overgrown with T. atroviride TRS40 at the 5% w/v, resulted in survival only 6.7% of sclerotia. In the greenhouse experiments with lettuce, the application of granulates T-GRAN into the soil had different impact on S. sclerotiorum depending on the conditions to the pathogen development. In conducive conditions, an addition of the organic substances without Trichoderma significantly decreased the yield of lettuce plants. A positive effect on the growth of plants was observed after the application of T-GRAN overgrown with Trichoderma.