Abstract
Soilborne diseases are a major constraining factor to soil health and plant health in potato production. In the toolbox of crop management, soil amendments have shown benefits to control these diseases and improve soil quality. Most amendments provide nutrients to plants and suppress multiple soilborne pathogens. Soil amendments are naturally derived materials and products and can be classified into fresh or living plants, organic or inorganic matters, and microbial supplements. Fresh plants have unique functions and continuously exude chemicals to interact with soil microbes. Organic and inorganic matter contain high levels of nutrients, including nitrogen and carbon that plants and soil microorganisms need. Soil microorganisms, whether being artificially added or indigenously existing, are a key factor in plant health. Microbial communities can be considered as a biological reactor in an ecosystem, which suppress soilborne pathogens in various mechanisms and turn soil organic matter into absorbable forms for plants, regardless of amendment types. Therefore, soil amendments serve as an energy input, nutrient source, and a driving force of microbial activities. Advanced technologies, such as microbiome analyses, make it possible to analyze soil microbial communities and soil health. As research advances on mechanisms and functions, amendment-based strategies will play an important role in enhancing soil health and disease suppression for better potato production.
Highlights
As research advances on mechanisms and functions, amendment-based strategies will play an important role in enhancing soil health and disease suppression for better potato production
There are two ways to enhance the microbial community in soil: (1) applying microbial amendments, such as adding microbial products to directly boost the population of certain taxa of microorganisms [36], and (2) applying organic matter to feed indigenous microbes and increase microbial populations in both abundance and diversity
Specific microorganisms may be directly added with well characterized functions, but the majority of functional microbes that take effect come from the soil as indigenous microbial communities that may be augmented by added organic amendments
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. In order to enhance potato health, providing required nutrients to the plant and reducing soilborne diseases are the most important aspects to consider. Compared to many other crops, potato production requires intensive tillage, resulting in minimal plant residues left over and the rapid loss of nutrients in fields. There are at least 85 known diseases that can cause the loss of potato production to different extents, and half of them are soilborne [3,4]. Most soilborne pathogens can survive in soil for a long time because they have specialized survival structures, such as sclerotia, oospores, and chlamydospores [6,7,16,17] These structures help them to survive through winter months and periods without available hosts. As a result, leaving the field fallow may not quickly reduce the population of pathogens, and more aggressive actions may need to be taken to control soilborne diseases. We will discuss amendmentbased strategies, with emphasis on plant- and microbe-related products in the control of soilborne diseases
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