Phelipanche aegyptiaca management in tomato

Abstract

Summary Phelipanche and Orobanche species (broomrapes) are root holoparasitic plants that cause severe damage to economically important crops. Phelipanche and Orobanche spp. are widespread in Mediterranean areas, in Asia and in Southern and Eastern Europe, attacking dicotyledonous crops and depending entirely on their hosts for all nutritional requirements. Phelipanche aegyptiaca, Phelipanche ramosa and Orobanche cernua are extremely troublesome weeds on tomatoes. These noxious parasites exert their greatest damage prior to their shoot emergence and flowering; therefore, the majority of field loss may occur before diagnosis of infection. This review summarises the four main control measures for the weedy root parasites Phelipanche and Orobanche in tomato, namely chemical and biological control, resistant varieties and sanitation. Some of these methods are commercially widely used by farmers in Israel (chemical control), some are in the final stages of development towards commercialisation (resistant varieties and sanitation), and some still require further development and improvement before commercial implementation (biological control). The review presents an up‐to‐date summary of the available knowledge on their use for broomrape management in processing tomatoes.

Chemical control of branched broomrape in processing tomato using sulfonylureas in southern Italy

“…Various Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Apiaceae species are resistant to some of the imidazolinone herbicides, however in tomato plants foliar application of imidazolinones (imazapic and imazamox) has been reported to injure flowers and fruit buds (Eizenberg et al, 2013). Encouraging results have been obtained with sulfonylureas on tomato in several application trials although on a different species of broomrape (P. aegyptiaca, O. cernua) (Hershenhorn et al, 1998a(Hershenhorn et al, , 1998b(Hershenhorn et al, , 1998cEizenberg et al, 2003;Hershenhorn et al, 2009;Eizenberg et al, 2012;Ghannam et al, 2012;Dinesh and Dhanapal, 2013). The sulfonylureas application for P. ramosa control has been successfully performed on glasshouse-grown tomato (Qasem, 1998) and on potato (Goldwasser et al, 2001).…”

“…Moreover, in TSFH it was observed a lower mean weight of the fruits than with TSDH treatment, although yield was not significantly affected. It could be speculate that behind the negative effect on plant development, which reduced fruit number (TS could have negatively affected pollination and/or fecundation and/or fruit set as suggested by Hershenhorn et al, 2009), the foliar spray treatment caused physiological alterations (e.g. lower photosynthetic activity) which resulted in reduced plant and fruit growth.…”

Characterization of a novel tomato mutant resistant to the weedy parasites Orobanche and Phelipanche spp.

“…A tomato line (PZU-11) that was reported to be resistant to Phelipanche in the northern region of Eastern Europe (Avdeyev and Scherbinin 1977) failed to show similar resistance, in the field, in other locations (Foy et al 1987; reviewed by Hershenhorn et al 2009). These results, coming from the enormous effort that has been invested in searching for a broomrape resistance trait (from wild and primitive tomato genetic resources-see Hershenhorn et al 2009), let us to the conclusion that the natural genetic variability supporting broomrape resistance is low. Under these circumstances, mutagenesis may provide a way of expanding genetic variation, which could be utilized in resistance-breeding programs ( Van-Harten 1998).…”

The Influence of the Plant Growth Regulator Maleic Hydrazide on Egyptian Broomrape Early Developmental Stages and Its Control Efficacy in Tomato under Greenhouse and Field Conditions

“…), that endangers the existence of the processing tomato industry in Israel, among other countries (Hershenhorn et al, 2009). Sulfosulfuron (SS) has been registered in Israel for P. aegyptiaca control in tomato.…”