Abstract
Replant disease is a soil (micro-) biome-based, harmfully-disturbed physiological and morphological reaction of plants to replanting similar cultures on the same sites by demonstrating growth retardation and leading to economic losses especially in Rosaceae plant production. Commonly, replant disease is overcome by soil fumigation with toxic chemicals. With chemical soil fumigation being restricted in many countries, other strategies are needed. Biofumigation, which is characterized by the incorporation of Brassicaceae plant materials into soil, is a promising method. We review the potential of biofumigation in the fight against replant disease. Biofumigation using optimized Brassicaceae seed meal compositions in combination with replant disease tolerant plant genotypes shows promising results, but the efficacy is still soil and site-dependent. Therefore, future studies should address the optimal timing as well as amount and type of incorporated plant material and environmental conditions during incubation in dependence of the soil physical and chemical characteristics.
Highlights
Plant Quality and Food Security, Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ), Theodor-Echtermeyer-Weg 1, 14979 Grossbeeren, Germany
A focus of many studies was on the effects of biofumigation on reducing major causal agents of apple replant disease, mainly Pythium, Rhizoctonia, Cylindrocarpon, and Pratylenchus penetrans [70,115,116,117,118,121]
Biofumigation with Brassicaceae seed meal formulations has promising potential in the fight of especially apple replant disease, and interest in this management option may even increase in the future as chemical fumigation in many countries is no longer an alternative
Summary
After replanting similar crop species at the same site, severe plant growth depression can be observed. The plant as the initiator of replant disease suggests that autotoxicity is involved This is caused by the release of chemicals, often phenolic secondary metabolites, which are toxic to the same and related plant species [3,16]. I.e., the incorporation of organic carbon under water saturation and sealing with plastic foils that leads to oxygen depletion by facultative anaerobes, was found to be an effective countermeasure against replant disease for instance in apple and cherry [31,32]. Another strategy would be breeding for replant disease tolerance [33,34], but this is time-consuming and difficult as long as the causes and etiology are not resolved. Biofumigation that is based on the release of toxic metabolites from biological material of members of the Brassicaceae plant family, is one of the management options for mitigating replant disease
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