Reductions in the quality and yield of crops continuously produced in the same location for many years due to annual increases in soil-borne pathogens. Environmentally-friendly methods are needed to produce vegetables sustainably and cost effectively under protective cover. We investigated the impact of biofertilizers on cucumber growth and yield, and changes to populations of soil microorganisms in response to biofertilizer treatments applied to substrate or soil. We observed that some biofertilizers significantly increased cucumber growth and decreased soil-borne pathogens in soil and substrate. Rhizosphere microbial communities in soil and substrate responded differently to different biofertilizers, which also led to significant differences in microbial diversity and taxonomic structure at different times in the growing season. Biofertilizers increase the prospects of re-using substrate for continuously producing high-quality crops cost-effectively from the same soil each year while at the same time controlling soil-borne disease.

Foodborne pathogens that enter the human food chain are a significant threat worldwide to human health. Timely and cost-effective detection of them became challenging for many countries that want to improve their detection and control of foodborne illness. We summarize simple, rapid, specific, and highly effective molecular technology that is used to detect and identify foodborne pathogens, including polymerase chain reaction, isothermal amplification, loop-mediated isothermal amplification, nucleic acid sequence-based amplification, as well as gene chip and gene probe technology. The principles of their operation, the research supporting their application, and the advantages and disadvantages of each technology are summarized.

The area used to grow high-value crops is currently decreasing because production in the same soil for many years increases soil-borne diseases that reduce crop yield and quality as well as farmer income. Soil-borne disease is effectively controlled by soil fumigation prior to planting. In this study, the five different types of soils that had been used to grow tomatoes, watermelon, cucumber, ginseng and ginger were collected from field plots with high incidence of soil-borne diseases. This experiment adopts the indoor fumigation method to conduct triple fumigation of chloropicrin(PIC), metham sodium(MS) and dimethyl disulfide(DMDS) on different soil collected to examine changes in the soil microbial community, including pathogenic fungi and bacteria and beneficial microorganisms in order to clarify the impact on the overall structure of soil microbial community while controlling complex and multiple pathogens. High-throughput gene sequencing was used to detect bacterial and fungal taxonomic changes in the treated soils. Triple fumigation significantly reduced the abundance of at least five kinds of pathogenic fungi, Fusarium oxysporum, Mortierella, Neocosmospora, Nitrospira Alternaria and significantly increased the abundance of two kinds of beneficial species, Bacillus and Trichoderma. The research result observed increases and decreases in the biodiversity and richness of beneficial and pathogenic bacteria and fungi in response to triple fumigation of soil that had been used to grow tomatoes, watermelon, cucumber, ginseng and ginger. The most significant effect was observed in the experimental field of Panax notoginseng in Wenshan, Yunnan. Triple fumigation showed good potential to decrease pathogenic bacteria and fungi in soils and improve the disease resistance of soils, and that it has a good application prospect in the field of soil disinfestation.