Acquisition of potential biological control agents from agrobiodiversity to control leafy crop disease

• Published in: Agrobiodiversity in Malaysia II: conservation and sustainable utilization pp. 155 - 162
• Main Authors: R. Laboh, S. Rossall
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) 2011
• Subjects: Agrobiodiversity; Biological control agents; Biological techniques (in vitro); Disease control; Disease control methods; Fungicides; Plant disease control
• ISBN: 9679365832; 9789679365832

Botrytis cinerea is a fungus that affects most of the crops species in the worldincluding lettuce. This disease can cause severe yield losses and marketable yieldpenalties. Currently, many researchers have focused on alternative disease controlprocedures to reduce the usage of fungicides on horticultural crops, whilstmaintaining the quality and appearance of the plants. One of the alternatives hasbeen tested in the present study was the use of biological control agents (BCAs)from crop biodiversity to control disease. The acquisition of potential BCAs, mainlybacteria from lettuce biodiversity was achieved using lettuce leaf discs suspendedin specific medium, with and without the additional of 0.1 % Tween 20, prior toculturing on nutrient agar. A series of in vitro screening procedures, on a range of media (including lettuce extract agar), allowed rapid detection and selection ofpotentially-active bacteria strains from the original population isolated. From 220bacterial strains, 11 leading bacterial isolates were selected to be screen in vivo.