Controlling Soil-Borne Diseases By Composts

Summary

Controlling soil-borne diseases is crucial for farmers because these pathogens can persist in the soils for a long time due to their form of resistance, and are able to stay on the crop residues.To fight against the presence of these pathogens, research in organic agriculture (OA) has shown the interest of certain intercultural plants but it’s a restrictive field technique. We tested a method easily usable in fields: mechanical amendment by compost. This method has positive effects on agronomic characteristics of soils, and microorganisms growing in composts can directly influence soil microbial communities 1-3.We performed a screening of 18 various composts, with a focus on manufacturing process, agronomic values and suppressive effect against three pathogenic fungi regularly encountered in vegetable crops: Pythium ultimum, Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium oxysporum. The purpose of this study was to characterize composts for use in agriculture to control these soil-borne diseases in vegetable crops.