Re: [compost_tea] Re:pretty close to compost tea!

From: Jeff Lowenfels <jeff_at_gardener.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 08:39:30 -0800

From: ARS News Service <NewsService_at_ars.usda.gov>
Date: September 27, 2004 3:55:02 AM PDT
To: ARS News subscriber <lonrom_at_hevanet.com>
Subject: Bacteria Tackle Spud Woes
Reply-To: ARS News Service <NewsService_at_ars.usda.gov>

STORY LEAD:
Bacteria Take on Late Blight, Sprouting and Dry Rot in Potatoes
___________________________________________

ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Jan Suszkiw, (301) 504-1630, jsuszkiw_at_ars.usda.gov
September 27, 2004
___________________________________________

Spraying potatoes with harmless bacteria that delay sprouting and
suppress dry rots may also shield the tubers from late blight disease,
according to Agricultural Research Service scientists.

Patricia Slininger and David Schisler at the ARS National Center for
Agricultural Utilization Research, Peoria, Ill., and colleagues
patented methods for using 18 strains of Pseudomonas and Enterobacter
bacteria to stymie postharvest sprouting and dry rot. Caused by the
fungus Fusarium sambuciunum, dry rot costs $100 million in losses in
stored potatoes, which comprise 70 percent of the nation's $3 billion
tuber crop.

Recently, at annual meetings of the Society for Industrial Microbiology
and the American Phytopathological Society, the scientists reported
their discovery that the spray-on bacteria also stymie infection of
stored spuds by Phytophthora infestans, the funguslike organism
responsible for late blight. This disease is a worldwide threat,
causing $400 million in losses in the U.S. potato crop alone. The
emergence of fungicide-resistant strains of late blight has exacerbated
the problem, according to Schisler, who is in the ARS center's Crop
Bioprotection Research Unit.

To determine the beneficial bacteria's potential as a fungicide
alternative, the Peoria team began by inoculating wounded potatoes with
both the bacteria and an infectious-spore stage of late blight. After
storing the potatoes for one week at 15 degrees Celsius and 90 percent
relative humidity, the team checked the spuds for the telltale signs of
late blight: a shrunken surface with irregular brown patches beneath.
Their top bacterial "picks"--three strains of P. fluorescens and one of
E. cloacae--reduced late blight by 25 to 65 percent.

In warehouse-simulation studies at the University of Idaho-Kimberly,
the team sprayed boxes of potatoes with mixtures of late blight and the
bacteria. In those studies, the bacteria curbed late blight by 35 to 91
percent.

The ARS team, together with University of Idaho scientists, will
collaborate with a commercial firm to conduct further tests under a
cooperative research and development agreement.

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research
agency.
___________________________________________
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Received on Mon Sep 27 2004 - 14:51:32 EDT

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