Evaluation of strawberry seed treatments with biological control agents Bacillus amyloliquefaciens

Abstract

The treatment of seeds is important to ensure the health of those seeds and the seedlings they generate, allowing full expression of the genetic and physiological potential of the crop. Furthermore, seed treatments can be useful in reducing the amounts of pesticides required to manage a disease, because effective seed treatments can eliminate the need for foliar application of fungicides later in the season. Although the application of fungicides is almost always effective, their non-target environmental impact and the development of pathogen resistance have led to the search for alternative methods, especially in the past few years. In this work, two bacterial isolates of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (B3 and B24) selected as antagonistic strains of Botrytis cinerea in previous study were used for strawberry seed treatments. The efficacy of seed treatments with B. amyloliquefaciens strains against the B. cinerea pathogen was evaluated based on germination proportion of seeds. When applied as seed treatments, the percentage of germination of seeds treated with B. amyloliquefaciens B3 and B24 was much higher than that of seeds treated with the conidia of the pathogen B. cinerea, and it approaches that of control seeds.