Disease-suppressive soils

J. W. Kloepper, J. Leong, M. Teintze, and M. N. Schroth, Pseudomonas sidcro-phores a mechanism explaining disease-suppressive soils. Current Microbiology 4 317 (1980). 

Peters RD, Sturz AV, Carter MA, Sanderson JB (2003) Developing disease-suppressive soils through crop rotation and tillage management practices. Soil Till Res 72 181-192 Pfiffner L, Luka H (2003) Effects of low-input farming systems on carabids and epigeal spiders - a paired farm approach. Basic Appl Ecol 4 117-127 Pimentel D, Harvey C, Resosudarmo P, Sinclair K, Kurz D, McNair M, Crist S, Shpritz L, Fitton L, Saffouri R, Blair R (1995) Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits. Science 267 1117-1123... 

Peters, R.D., Sturz, A.V., Carter, M.R., Sanderson, J.B. Developing disease-suppressive soils through crop rotation and tillage management practices. Soil Till Res 2003 72 139-152. 

Schroth, M.N., Hancock, J.G. Disease-suppressive soil and root-colonizing bacteria. Science 1982 216 1376-81. 

Bailey, K.L. and Lazarovits, G. (2003). Suppressing soil-borne diseases with residue management and organic amendments , Soil and Tillage Research, 72, 169-180. 

Curl, E.A. (1988). The role of soil microfauna in plant-disease suppression , Critical Review of Plant Science, 7, 175-196. 

In addition, Postma et al. (2003) found that compost amended soil has also been found to be suppressive against plant diseases in various cropping systems. The level and reproducibility of disease suppressive properties of compost might be increased by the addition of antagonists. In this study, the establishment and suppressive activity... 

Postma J., Montanari M., Van den Boogert P.H J.F. Microbial enrichment to enhance the disease suppressive activity of compost. European J Soil Biol 2003 39 157-163. 

Attempts to simplify the biological basis for disease suppression in agricultural soils have reduced this concept to two broad mechanisms namely that of i) a general suppression based upon the activity of the total microbial biomass that is not transferable between soils, and ii) a specific suppression that depends upon the activity of specific groups of microorganisms (Weller et al., 2002). 

The wide array of nomenclature used to describe disease suppression in agricultural soils, is matched by an equally wide variety of individual microbial mechanisms postulated to explain these phenomena. However, it should be noted that these mechanisms are fairly presumptive, and, if they occur in vivo, are likely to operate in parallel with each other (Figure 1). 

Figure 1. Parallel action of disease suppression mechanisms operating within the host plant (endoroot) and in the surrounding soil (exoroot).

Huber, D.M., Schneider, R.W. The description and occurrence of suppressive soils. In, Suppressive Soils and Plant Disease. Schneider, R.W. ed. APS St. Paul, Minnesota, 1982 pp. 1-7. 

Sturz, A.V., Ryan, D.A.J., Matheson, B.G, Arsenault, W.J., Kimpinski, J., Christie, B.R. Stimulating disease suppression in soils sulphate fertilizers can increase biodiversity and antibiosis ability of root zone bacteria against Streptomyces scabies. Soil Biol Biochem 2004 36 343-352. 

Large populations of rhizobacteria are usually present in file rhizosphere, mainly because of die ideal environmental conditions they encounter there due to a constant supply of nutrients provided through root exudates and lysates [58]. Many of the present strains exert a disease controlling activity simply by directly antagonizing soil-borne pathogens [59,60]. In order to investigate disease suppression conditioned by ISR, it is therefore important to spatially separate the bacteria fiom the roots. 

Direct application of purified 68 to seeds suppressed damping-off disease in soil naturally infested with Pythium spp. The macrocyclic lactam antibiotic, xanthobaccin A (68), which has a characteristic 5,5,6-tricyclic skeleton and tetramic acid chromophore [148], displayed mycelial growth inhibition of A. cochlioides, Py. ultimum, and Ph. vignae f. sp. adzukicola at a range of 0.1-10 pg/ml. 

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