Damaging Effects of Pulsed Electric Field Process Parameters on Rhizoctonia solani Cells Using Response Surface Methodology

Feng Feng,Zhu Zhu,Jiang Jiang,Yin Yin,Li Li

doi:10.3390/app9214706

Abstract

This work aimed to analyse the damaging effects of pulsed electric fields on Rhizoctonia solani. Design Expert software was used to design an orthogonal experiment. The cell membrane damage and cell wall damage were observed by scanning electron microscopy and quantitatively determined while using a conductivity metre and an ultraviolet spectrophotometer. The results showed that the cell membrane damage rate was correlated with the voltage amplitude and processing time (p < 0.01), while the effect of pulse duration was not significant (p > 0.05). Besides, the cell wall damage was related to electric field strength (voltage amplitude) (p < 0.01), while the pulse duration and processing time had no significant effect on that (p > 0.05). The optimal process parameters for this method were 25 kV/cm, 5 min., and a pulse duration of 60 µs. The optimised conditions were tested based on these results. When compared with Control Check (CK), the cell membrane damage rate was 48.72%, which was significantly higher than CK (p < 0.01).

Highlights

Rice is one of the most important food crops worldwide, and, together with maize and wheat [1], the staple food of more than half of the world’s population, and it is of great value to the supply of human food [2]
It can be seen from the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image that the Pulsed electric field (PEF) with the voltage amplitude of 25 kV, the processing time of 4.62 min., and the pulse duration of 60 μs acts on Rhizoctonia solani, destroyed the morphological structure and accompanied the overflow of cell contents, which indicates that PEF
It was found that the cell membrane damage rate of Rhizoctonia solani was mainly related to the voltage amplitude and processing time (p < 0.01), while the current pulse duration of 30–60 μs was not significant (p > 0.05)

Summary

Introduction

Rice is one of the most important food crops worldwide, and, together with maize and wheat [1], the staple food of more than half of the world’s population, and it is of great value to the supply of human food [2]. Its high and stable yield is of great significance for ensuring food security [3]. It is well known that rice sheath blight, caused by R. solani infection, is one of the most destructive rice diseases in the world [4]. It primarily occurs under high temperature and humidity conditions, and it has a wide host range and high competitive saprophytic ability, and its control is of great significance to national food security [5].

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion