Controlling Sugar Beet Mortality Disease by Application of New Bioformulations

Abstract

There is growing interests in the use of biological approaches to replace or reduce the application of chemical pesticides in modern agriculture. In this regard, antagonistic fungi and particularly bacteria have proved to be potential candidates. In the search for efficient alternative biofungicides, eight new Bioformulations were developed and prepared using two strains of Pseudomonas fluorescens (B1) and Bacillus coagulans (B2) isolated from different rhizospheric soils and plant roots of Iranian sugar beet fields. Biofor- mulations were developed using procedures described in the literature. Bioformulations included a talc-based powder and bentonite- based powder as inorganic carriers, and peat and rice bran as organic carriers. The results of our greenhouse experiment, where these bioformulations were applied to sugar beet seeds to control seedling mortality disease, showed that most of the treatments at different intervals (15, 30, 45 and 60 days after sowing) were effective in reducing the disease (compared to the untreated control). According to the results, six out of eight of the developed bioformulations, including Peat-B1, Peat-B2, R.B.-B2, Bent.-B1, Talc-B1 and Talc-B2, were more effective than commonly used fungicides (Carboxin-thiram) in controlling sugar beet mortality disease. Yet, two bioformula- tions (R.B.-B1 and Bent.-B2) were less effective than carboxin-thiram in the reduction of the disease incidence.