Abstract
Fusarium wilt is an important disease of many food crops and often causes serious damages to yield and food quality. Consequently, numerous studies mainly focused on exploring the control strategy for Fusarium oxysporum as well as the mechanism of interaction between the F. oxysporum and other beneficial soil microorganisms. In this study, we have screened and identified an efficient biocontrol strain from the soil with infection of F. oxysporum f. sp. momordica (referred to as Fom), Talaromyces purpurogenus Q2 (referred to as TpQ2), which could be effective to reduce relative abundance of the rhizospheric Fom, leading to a significant decrease of Fusarium wilt disease incidence in bitter gourd during the greenhouse and field trails. TpQ2 can reduce the relative abundance of rhizospheric Fom through inhibition of growth and development of Fom. During the co-cultivation of TpQ2 and Fom, we confirmed that TpQ2 could significantly suppress the growth and development of Fom through disturbing the normal hyphae shape and function of the cell walls of Fom via secreting cell wall–degrading enzymes and suppression of the expression of cell wall biosynthesis genes, such as FomCFEM. In the meantime, TpQ2 showed a strong negative correlation with F. oxysporum in soil and positive correlation with beneficial indigenous microorganisms that had significant negative correlation with Fusarium populations, such as Streptomycetes, Lysobacter, and Sphingobium. To summarize, TpQ2 has a good biocontrol efficacy on Fusarium wilt of bitter gourd. The biocontrol mechanisms of TpQ2 on Fusarium wilt are complex and diverse.
Highlights
Fusarium oxysporum is a common saprophytic fungus that exists ubiquitously in soil, and some of them can cause vascular wilt disease in many food crops, leading to significant economic losses worldwide annually (Xiao et al, 2008; Arie, 2010; Huang and Cai, 2017; Kashiwa et al, 2017)
To identify microbes with antagonistic activity to Fom, over 100 microbes were first identified through screening, and 14 of them were found with strong antagonistic activities (52–83%) to Fom, including 7 bacterial isolates, 1 Penicillium sp., 1 Talaromyces sp., and 5 Trichoderma sp. (Supplementary Table 6)
Further studies showed that the control efficacy of strain Q2 on Fusarium wilt of bitter gourd was stable in the field
Summary
Fusarium oxysporum is a common saprophytic fungus that exists ubiquitously in soil, and some of them can cause vascular wilt disease in many food crops, leading to significant economic losses worldwide annually (Xiao et al, 2008; Arie, 2010; Huang and Cai, 2017; Kashiwa et al, 2017). The invasion of the pathogenic F. oxysporum population can trigger drastic changes in microbiome compositions of soil, leading to a decline of disease suppression and soil quality due to an increase of pathogenic microbes, loss of microbial diversity, and microbial community function. Soil microorganisms will not resign oneself to death; increased abundances of effective microorganisms, such as Streptomycetes, Lysobacter, Sphingobium, and Dyadobacter, build the first defense line against soil-borne pathogens in the suppressive soil of Fusarium wilt (Fu et al, 2017). The establishment of an effective strategy to stimulate beneficial indigenous microorganisms and decrease the abundances of pathogenic Fusarium is critical for the successful management of Fusarium wilt disease
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