home    about    browse    search    latest    help 
Login | Create Account

Differences in leaf litter, ascospore production and infection of pear scab (Venturia pirina) in Dutch organic orchards

Timmermans, B.G.H. and Jansonius, PieterJans (2012) Differences in leaf litter, ascospore production and infection of pear scab (Venturia pirina) in Dutch organic orchards. Paper at: Eco-fruit : 15th international conference on cultivation technique and phytopathological problems in organic fruit-growing and viticulture, Hohenheim, 20-22 February 2012.

[thumbnail of 2757.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Published Version - English
234kB


Summary

The last two years we measured the amounts of leaf litter and ascospore production per unit of leaf litter area in 7 organic pear orchards throughout the Netherlands. In one of the orchards, adapted managements strategies were implemented two years ago, being grass/clover that is grown as ground cover on the tree-strip, and organic cattle-manure that replaces chicken manure pellets, in order to stimulate the earthworm population and change the palatability of the leaf litter. First results indicate large differences between orchards in percentage of ground covered by dead leaves at the time of major ascospore infections, but also in number of ascospores per cm 2 leaf litter and in resulting potential ascospore dose. We used these data, together with weather data (temperature, rainfall), in a simple multivariate analysis to gain insight in the dynamics of the system. In 2010, 85 % of the variation in pear scab was explained with a model with rainfall during summer and the amount of asco sores per unit of leaf area. In 2011, 81 % of the variation was explained by a model with the amounts of ascospores per unit leaf area and the potential ascospore dose. In the adapted management experiment we measured no changes in leaf litter in the treatments yet. We discuss that our first results show that, to a limited degree, leaf litter was indeed important for the scab epidemic in 2011, whereas in 2010 the high amount of rainfall in the second part of the growing season must have led to a high conidial infection pressure. Surprisingly, in both years ascospore number per unit leaf area was of more importance than leaf litter area or potential ascospore dose. This raises questions on for example the correlation with branch-lesions that we did not measure, and whether the number of ascospores per unit of leaf litter is a direct or an indirect factor that steers the scab incidence in the orchards.


EPrint Type:Conference paper, poster, etc.
Type of presentation:Paper
Keywords:leaf degredation, pear scab, system approach, Conference, farmyard manure, leaf decomposition, disease cycle, rainfall, fruit growing
Subjects: Crop husbandry > Production systems > Fruit and berries
Research affiliation: Netherlands > Louis Bolk Institute
Deposited By: Steinbuch, Luc
ID Code:26237
Deposited On:10 Jun 2014 09:23
Last Modified:10 Jun 2014 09:23
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Not peer-reviewed

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics