Assessment of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Glomus spp.) as potential biocontrol agents against damping-off disease Rhizoctonia solani on cucumber

Volume 9, Issue 1
March 2020
Pages 141-147

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

1 Department of Plant Protection, College of Agriculture, Al-Muthanna University, Iraq.

2 College of Agriculture, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq.

Abstract
Damping-off disease, caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia solani, is one of the most important diseases of cucumber plant and causes significant yield losses. R. solani possess some characters, such as wide host range and unlimited survival in soil, that make it as pathogen one of the most difficult agents to control. Therefore, the research for finding a biocontrol agent against this disease will be valuable. Two species of mycorrhizal fungi Glomus mosseae and Glomus clarum were evaluated against R. solani on cucumber plants. Mycorrhiza inoculated plants with both species showed a significant reduction in disease severity (DS), 21% and 25%, respectively, whereas the disease severity was 65% for non-inoculated plants. Furthermore, the effects of mycorrhizal fungi were evaluated on growth parameters of cucumber plants. Plants inoculated with both species of mycorrhizal fungi showed a significant increase in both shoot dry weight and root dry weight compared with noninoculated plants. It is concluded that both mycorrhiza species could be an important tool to control some soil-borne pathogens, increase plant nutrients absorption and increase resistance to abiotic stresses.

Keywords

Subjects
Abawi G., Widmer T. (2000) Impact of soil health management practices on soilborne pathogens, nematodes and root diseases of vegetable crops. Applied soil ecology 15:37-47.
Al-Askar A., Rashad Y. (2010) Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi: A Biocontrol Agent against Common. Plant pathology journal 9:31-38.
Bartz F.E., Cubeta M.A., Toda T., Naito S., Ivors K.L. (2010) An in planta method for assessing the role of basidiospores in Rhizoctonia foliar disease of tomato. Plant Disease 94:515-520.
Domsch K.H., Gams W., Anderson T.-H. (1980) Compendium of soil fungi. Volume 1 Academic Press (London) Ltd.
Guleria S., Aggarwal R., Thind T., Sharma T. (2007) Morphological and pathological variability in rice isolates of Rhizoctonia solani and molecular analysis of their genetic variability. Journal of Phytopathology 155:654-661.
Hoeksema J.D., Chaudhary V.B., Gehring C.A., Johnson N.C., Karst J., Koide R.T., Pringle A., Zabinski C., Bever J.D., Moore J.C. (2010) A meta‐analysis of context‐dependency in plant response to inoculation with mycorrhizal fungi. Ecology letters 13:394-407.
Jacott C.N., Murray J.D., Ridout C.J. (2017) Trade-offs in arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis: disease resistance, growth responses and perspectives for crop breeding. Agronomy 7:75.
Jaiswal A.K., Elad Y., Graber E.R., Frenkel O. (2014) Rhizoctonia solani suppression and plant growth promotion in cucumber as affected by biochar pyrolysis temperature, feedstock and concentration. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 69:110-118.
Justyna N., Magdalena S., Urszula M. (2017) Trichoderma atroviride enhances phenolic synthesis and cucumber protection against Rhizoctonia solani. Plant Protection Science 54:17-23.
Khan M.R., Fischer S., Egan D., Doohan F.M. (2006) Biological control of Fusarium seedling blight disease of wheat and barley. Phytopathology 96:386-394.
Liu K., McInroy J.A., Hu C.-H., Kloepper J.W. (2018) Mixtures of Plant-Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria Enhance Biological Control of Multiple Plant Diseases and Plant-Growth Promotion in the Presence of Pathogens. Plant Disease 102:67-72.
Manganiello G., Sacco A., Ercolano M.R., Vinale F., Lanzuise S., Pascale A., Napolitano M., Lombardi N., Lorito M., Woo S.L. (2018) Modulation of tomato response to Rhizoctonia solani by Trichoderma harzianum and its secondary metabolite harzianic acid. Frontiers in microbiology 9:1966.
Manila R., Nelson R. (2017) Nutrient uptake and promotion of growth by Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Tomato and their role in Bio-protection against the tomato wilt pathogen. Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology Research 3:42-46.
Saberi M., Sarpeleh A., Askary H., Rafiei F. (2013) The effectiveness of wood vinegar in controlling Rhizoctonia solani and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in green house-cucumber. Int J Agric Res Nat Res 1:38-43.
Sharma M., Gupta S., Sharma T. (2005) Characterization of variability in Rhizoctonia solani by using morphological and molecular markers. Journal of Phytopathology 153:449-456.
Smith S.E., Read D.J. (2010) Mycorrhizal symbiosis Academic press.
Smith S.E., Smith F.A., Jakobsen I. (2003) Mycorrhizal fungi can dominate phosphate supply to plants irrespective of growth responses. Plant physiology 133:16-20.
Song Y., Chen D., Lu K., Sun Z., Zeng R. (2015) Enhanced tomato disease resistance primed by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus. Frontiers in plant science 6:786.
Thakur M., Sahu N.R., Tiwari P., Kotasthane A. (2018) Combination of Azoxystrobin+ Difenocanazole provides effective management of sheath blight of rice caused by Rhizoctonia solani. IJCS 6:1682-1685.
Vinale F., Marra R., Scala F., Ghisalberti E., Lorito M., Sivasithamparam K. (2006) Major secondary metabolites produced by two commercial Trichoderma strains active against different phytopathogens. Letters in Applied Microbiology 43:143-148.
Vinale F., Sivasithamparam K., Ghisalberti E.L., Marra R., Woo S.L., Lorito M. (2008) Trichoderma–plant–pathogen interactions. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 40:1-10.