Jun 2022 DOI 10.14302/issn.2832-5311.jpcd-22-4182
Sclerotiniasclerotiorum, the causal agent for white mold (Sclerotinia stem rot), is a devastating fungal pathogen. Currently, Sclerotinia is most commonly managed using the chemical fungicide which can lead to Sclerotinia resistance development, impacting biodiversity and interfering with key ecosystem services. In this regards, field experiments were conducted during 2017-18 planting seasons to evaluate the efficacy of different components viz. sawdust burning, stable bleaching powder, fungal and bacterial bio-control agents, chemical fungicide Rovral 50 WP and integration of different components for the management white mold disease of bush bean, mustard and garden pea in three different locations viz. in the field of Plant Pathology Division, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Joydebpur, Gazipur, Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS), Burirhat, Rangpur and RARS, Ishurdi, Pabna, respectively. The results showed that different treatments displayed varying levels of effectiveness against the disease. All the treatments gave satisfactory reduction of white mold disease development and increased plant growth as well as yield of bush bean, mustard and garden pea. Among the treatments, integration of saw dust burning + soil amendments with Trichoderma based bio-fungicide + bacillus based bio-control agents + application fungicide Rovral 50 WP is the best treatment which reduced 97.49%, 77.72%, 72.26% white mold disease incidence and 84.61%, 81.14%, 71.01% white mold disease severity of mustard, bush bean and garden pea, respectively and increasing plant growth parameter as well as 52.16%, 27.74%, 36.97% yield of mustard, bush bean and garden pea, respectively. Application of only fungicide Rovral 50 WP also better treatment in reduction of white mold disease incidence and disease severity and increasing plant growth parameter as well as increasing yield of mustard, bush bean and garden pea. Soil amendment with fungal or bacterial bio-control agents also gave satisfactory results in reduction of white mold disease incidence and disease severity and increasing plant growth parameter as well as increasing yield of mustard, bush bean and garden pea. It could be concluded from the obtained results that integration between bio-control agents as a soil treatment and foliar application chemical fungicide might be useful as a good tool for controlling white mold disease caused by S.sclerotiorum and obtained higher yield of bush bean, mustard and garden pea under field condition.
May 2020 DOI 10.14302/issn.2639-3166.jar-20-3363
Rapid analyses methods for the assessment of soil microbiota are lacking. In a commercial farm tomato plants were subjected to different fertilization strategies: 1. mineral Control (C); 2. Organic amendment (O); 3. Organic amendment + Micosat F © biofertilizer (OM). A first rapid method (Litterbag-NIRS) concerned hay litterbags coupled with a smart SCiOTM device. A second method (Foliar-NIRS) used the same device on the leaves. The plants showed positive responses to the amendment and biofertilization in the yield: C 60.5.1 t ha-1vs. 70.8 in O (+17%) and 74.2 in OM (+23% from C and + 5% (P 0.08) from O). The use of Litterbag-NIRS fingerprinting, completed with litterbags phenotyping and elaborated with a multivariate support vector machine classifier provided a similar knowledge to that obtained from microbial and chemical analyses of the soil. The reason for this response is that the analyses were embedded in the Litterbag-NIRS at medium-high precision. A polydromic function was hypothesized in order to disentangle the activities of different soil microbial populations from each other. The organic amendment delayed the functionality of the rapid r-strategist microbial populations, but at the same time activated slow k-strategists to intake the walls of the hay inside the litterbags. In this sense, the Litterbag-NIRS test can provide an effective “swamp” of the microbial fertility of the soil. Briefly, the Litterbag-NIRS coupled with Foliar-NIRS accounted for 95% of the average yield results, and both are therefore recommended for a rational assessment of microbial soil fertility.
Feb 2020 DOI 10.14302/issn.2690-0904.ijoe-20-3205
The aim was to record the smoking behaviour of 13- to 16-year-old Austrian pupils and to investigate changes in smoking behaviour following amendments of legislation and gender-specific differences. The survey took place in Vienna, Lower Austria, Burgenland, Styria and Carinthia and was conducted at eight different school types. The data was collected by means of a questionnaire in a group setting at the beginning of a school lesson. The completion of the questionnaire was anonymous. 95,1% of the returned questionnaires could be used for this study, yielding data from a total of 1029 young people for analysis. 38.4% of the participants stated that they had at least once consumed tobacco or related products, with girls having tried them more often (41,6%) than boys (34,9%) (p = .028). At the time of the study, 3,3% used tobacco daily and 4,6% several times a week; thus 7,9% smoke regularly. Although friends or family are the most popular type of acquisition for girls and boys, girls buy their tobacco products from vending machines (11,6%) much more frequently than boys (6,0%) (p = .014) and prefer normal cigarettes (p < .001). The results of this study show that while the number of adolescents who smoke daily is decreasing, the number of occasional smokers is increasing. Already 38,4% of the 13 to 16-year olds have had some experience consuming tobacco. Austria must take the measures recommended by the WHO to reduce the smoking prevalence and protect minors from the health damage caused by tobacco smoke.