BSU develops Ticho ‘derma’ vs crop disease

AGGIE UPDATES

By Rocky Ngalob

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — Soil acidity greatly reduces farm production. One factor is the conventional method of farming which is now common practice in Benguet.

Aside from the rising soil acidity, cool temperature, the region’s humidity, especially during the ‘Ber’ (cold) months affects the soil acidity too. To make matters worse, crop diseases surface during these ‘Ber’ months attacking the already dwindling crop survival, one of which is the infamous Clubroot.

Clubroot is caused by a Protozoon (Phylum protozoa), which is characterized by its long life span in soil, spreads easily and prefers acidic soil. The organism survives in the soil and in the dead contaminated crop. Infected plants show symptoms such as yellowing, wilting, stunting, low yield and the club shaped roots, which is why the disease is so named.

This can only be prevented from multiplying if the soil pH is close to neutral or pH seven.

Unfortunately for farmers in Benguet and neighboring municipalities of Mountain Province that share similar terrain, the conventional method of farming, cool, wet and acidic soil provides favorable environment for the organism or plant diseases to spread rapidly.

At the Benguet State University here, a breakthrough research was conducted to address the problem by Jake Bulcio and Dr. Asuncion Nagpala.

In their research, ‘Management of Clubroot (Plasmodiophora brassicae Worm) on Cabbage using Trichoderma and Lime in Natubleng, Buguias, Benguet, they discovered that Trichoderma,a fungus that dwells in soil, combined with lime has potential effect in controlling clubroot infection.

They noticed that when lime along with Trichoderma is applied to soil, it improved its micro-organism properties, thus enhancing availability of soil nutrients for the plant’s uptake.

The study showed that Trichoderma improved the root growth of most infected crops especially cruciferous vegetables which are commonly produced north on due to their tolerance to cool weather.

The common management of Clubroot exercised by our Cabbage growers is the application of lime to raise the soil pH and the use of soil fungicide so the spores of the organism will be prevented from germinating. Resting spores of the Protozoa are produced in the swollen Clubroots and released into the soil when these decompose.

Liming has been the common practice to raise the soil pH. However, liming does not kill the spores, it just prevents their germination and does not completely eliminate infection. Nevertheless it does significantly reduce the infection and disease severity.

The application of Trichoderma combined with the lime on the other hand, will drastically reduce Clubroot’s severity.

Crops that were treated with Trichaderma became resistant to diseases. Soil applied with Trichoderma increased its pH from 5.82 to 6.17.

In the treatment, the experiment applied 20g Trichoderma alone and 15g Trichoderma with lime which provided a Clubroot control of 79.50% and 79.20% respectively.

The results proved that while fungicide or flusulfamide provided the highest Clubroot control, the application of 20g Trichoderma especially when added with lime, can be as effective as the fungicide in protecting roots against Clubroot infection.

The rate of application of Trichoderma influenced the fresh and dry top weight of the cabbage.

The highest weight was obtained when the soil is applied with 20g Trichoderma combined with lime at six ton per hectare.

            “Trichoderma can be used in integrated disease management or Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) to address soil diseases of crucifers and other vegetable crops”, the research recommended.