Fusarium oxysporum and its biocontrol

Abstract

Summary Fusarium oxysporum is well represented among the rhizosphere microflora. While all strains exist saprophytically, some are well‐known for inducing wilt or root rots on plants whereas others are considered as nonpathogenic. Several methods based on phenotypic and genetic traits have been developed to characterize F. oxysporum strains. Results showed the great diversity affecting the soil‐borne populations of F. oxysporum. In suppressive soils, interactions between pathogenic and nonpathogenic strains result in the control of the disease. Therefore nonpathogenic strains are developed as biocontrol agents. The nonpathogenic F. oxysporum strains show several modes of action contributing to their biocontrol capacity. They are able to compete for nutrients in the soil, affecting the rate of chlamydospore germination of the pathogen. They can also compete for infection sites on the root, and can trigger plant defence reactions, inducing systemic resistance. These mechanisms are more or less important depending on the strain. The nonpathogenic F. oxysporum are easy to mass produce and formulate, but application conditions for biocontrol efficacy under field conditions have still to be determined.

The rhizosphere: a playground and battlefield for soilborne pathogens and beneficial microorganisms

“…In the case of biocontrol bacteria, this is explained in part by the fact that production of several antagonistic traits and compounds is subjected to cell-density dependent regulation or quorum sensing (Pierson et al 1998;Pierson and Pierson 2007). In addition, competition can in itself be a biocontrol mechanism, often for organic compounds necessary for reactivation of propagules and/or subsequent proliferation and root colonisation by the pathogen (Paulitz et al 1992;Van Dijk and Nelson 2000;Fravel et al 2003). Competition can also take place for micronutrients, especially iron, that are essential for growth and activity of the pathogen.…”

Effects of vermicompost amendment as a basal fertilizer on soil properties and cucumber yield and quality under continuous cropping conditions in a greenhouse

“…Beneficial fungi include Chaetomium globosum (Aggarwal et al 2014), uncultured Glomus (Hassan et al 2013), uncultured Trichoderma (Sharma et al 2012), and Mortierella alpina (Al-Shammari et al 2013). Harmful fungi include Fusarium oxysporum (Fravel et al 2003), Cladosporium sp. (Papazlatani et al 2016), Acremonium cucurbitacearum (Bruton et al 2000), Fusarium solani (Oddino et al 2008), Verticillium dahliae (Lopez-Escudero and Blanco-Lopez 2005), and Rhizopycnis vagum (Westphal et al 2011).…”

Fusarium oxysporum (F221-B) as biocontrol agent against plant pathogenic fungi in vitro and in hydroponics

“…antibiosis and competition. Unlike F221-B in our study, most of the non-pathogenic F. oxysporum strains which have been so far reported as promising BCA against fungal pathogens were isolated only from rhizosphere soils and roots of plants grown in suppressive soils (Benhamou et al 2002;Fravel et al 2003;Abeysinghe 2006;Rodriguez et al 2006;Patil et al 2011) but not from hydroponics. However, these results of the antagonistic activity and mechanisms of F221-B were still in line with those findings.…”

“…F221-B was found to effectively reduce Fusarium root rot and wilt of 3 lettuce varieties in the range of 64-85.3% as well as to promote their growth and yield. So far, many reports have provided such an evidence of successfully using many strains of non-pathogenic F. oxysporum recovered from either diseased rhizosphere soil or suppressive soil for controlling soil-grown crops Fuchs et al 1997;Duijff et al 1998;Fravel et al 2003) but not in hydroponics. Fo47 is the best known and most effective nonpathogenic strain of F. oxysporum which was isolated from a soil naturally suppressive to Fusarium wilt of tomato and melon in France (Alabouvette 1990;Alabouvette & Couteaudier 1992;Alabouvette et al 1993Alabouvette et al , 1996Alabouvette et al , 1998Larkin & Fravel 1999) and has been extensively studied for the control of Fusarium wilt disease of several vegetables and flower crops such as tomato (Fuchs et al 1997(Fuchs et al , 1999Duijff et al 1998), carnation (Lemancean et al 1992, and flax (Duijff et al 1999).…”

“…Effective control methods against the Fusarium disease of plants in hydroponics are still limited in terms of an environmentally safe method. Biological control of Fusarium wilt and root rot diseases has been reported in numerous crops cultivated in the soil Fravel et al 2003) such as tomato (Fuchs et al 1997(Fuchs et al , 1999Duijff et al 1998;Larkin & Fravel 1998), cucumber (Mandeel & Baker 1991), watermelon (Larkin et al 1996), spinach (Katsube & Alasaka 1997), basil (Minuto et al 1997), chickpea (Hervas et al 1998), and rakkyo (Honda & Kawakub 1998) but not in crops grown in hydroponics especially in the system without substrate.…”