Compost bacteria as potential agents in biological plant control

Abstract

The assumptions of integrated pest management put great emphasis on the development of non-chemical methods which increases the interest in biological methods and the search for microorganisms that would be an alternative to the most frequently used fungicides. The aim of the experiments was the isolation of the compost bacteria, in vitro determination of their fungistatic activity against some pathogenic fungi of the genus Fusarium, Alternaria, Sclerotinia, Botrytis, Rhizoctonia and Pythium and identification of selected isolates. From the backyard compost, 44 bacterial strains were isolated and assessed for the fungistatic properties by the well diffusion method. The obtained results allowed for the selection of 12 isolates of compost bacteria, characterised by the broadest and the strongest fungistatic activity spectrum against tested fungi. Identification of bacterial isolates by: MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry and 16S rRNA gene sequencing methods showed their belonging to the species Bacillus subtilis, Alcaligenes faecalis, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia and Serratia liquefaciens.