The National On Site Conference for Soil-Borne Disease Control Technology was held successfully at Anqiu City, Shandong Province, on 13 September, 2015. The senior officers who were present at the Conference include Prof. CHEN Mengshan, Secretary of Party Leadership Group of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Mr. ZHAO Runtian, Vice Governor of Shandong Province, Mr. ZHONG Tianrun, Deputy Director General of the National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center, Mr. WANG Jiuchen, Deputy Director General of Rural Energy and Environment Agency of China Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. ZHOU Xueping, Director General of Institute of Plant Protection (IPP), CAAS, Mr. ZHANG Bujiang, Secretary of the Party Committee, IPP-CAAS, and Mr. WEN Xue, Deputy Director General of IPP-CAAS and Mr. ZOU Qingzhong, the Standing Deputy Mayer of Weifang City, Shandong Province. Mr. LEI Maoliang, the Vice President of CAAS, conducted the Conference.

The participants of the Conference visited the large area demonstration of control effect in ginger fields in which soil fumigant had been applied,the comparable trials used different fumigants and the service system for soil fumigation at Shiduizi and Linhe Towns. Mr. WANG Wengang, a ginger grower at Shiduizi Town, estimated that, before,the yield of ginger was less than 60 metrictonnes/ha when soil-borne diseases occurred or he got total ginger failure if diseases were very serious. However, the yield of ginger reached 97.5tonnes/ha after the soil fumigation was applied. The averaged use of agro-chemicals had a 23.75% reduction and fertilizers 16.5% in the areas where the fumigation techniques were used according to the statistics from Anqiu Plant Protection Station.

Prof. Chen, Mr. Zhao and other participants visited the demonstration of control effect in ginger fields

Fumigated (left) and non-fumigated (right) ginger fields

Anqiu Research and Training Base, IPP-CAAS

Dr. CAO Aocheng, the chief scientist for the control of soil-borne diseases in IPP-CAAS, introduced the research progress and application of soil fumigation technology system. He said that soil-borne diseases had become an increasingly serious problem due to the intensive cultivation of high value cash crops such as protected vegetables. The crop yield and quality would decline greatly after the consecutive cultivation for three to five years. The reduction of yield could reach to 20-40% or total crop failure sometimes. Targeted at the serious situation of devastating and frequently occurring and outbroke soil-borne diseases that hampered the healthy development of protected agriculture and high value cash crops and cooperated with relevant institutions, IPP-CAAS established, since 1997, an IPM system in which soil fumigation was the core technology. Rapid detection of important pathogens was adopted prior to fumigation.The control of pathogen sources and field care were strengthened for the whole crop growth stages.This system is safe and non-toxic to agricultural products, environmentally friendly and can promote the crop yield and quality and products arecompetitive in international market. Currently, this technical system had been tested and demonstrated in Shandong, Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, Sichuan, Chongqing, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, etc., widely applied in ginger, strawberry, herbal medicines, protected vegetables, potato, flowers, etc., and achieved significant economic benefits. The increased economic benefit is over 3000 million Yuan (RMB) perannumaccording to preliminary estimate.

Prof. Chen Mengshan highly affirmed the research and the application of the control technology for soil-borne diseases. He pointed out that Dr. Cao in IPP had worked in obscurity in Anqiu for eight years to extend the control technology for soil-borne diseases and the technology supported strongly the development of greenhouse agriculture in China, increased the farmers' income and was well received among local farmers. It is important to reinforce the basic researches and technical innovations to control technologies of soil-borne diseases, to develop more safe and effective formulations and to develop more and better applying instruments. He asked to enhance the display, demonstration and extension of soil fumigation technology through establishing more demonstration sites and to guide farmers in using advanced technologies.

Mr. Zhao expressed that Shandong provincial government had paid high attention to the ecological restoration and improvement in agriculture. The soil disinfestation technology developed by CAAS had achieved good control efficacy andfacilitated the yield and income for farmers. He urged to take the opportunity of this Conference to further extend the technology of soil disinfestation, to strengthen the work of ecological restoration and to accelerate the improvement of the quality, the increase of the efficiency, the transformation of the product types and the enhancement of the production levels in agriculture in Shandong Province.

Chinese Academy of AgriculturalSciences, Department of Science, Technology and Education of Ministry of Agriculture, the National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center, Rural Energy and Environment Agency of Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture ofShandong Province, Weifang City Government jointly sponsored this Conference. IPP-CAAS, Shandong General Station of Rural Environment Protection and Energy, Weifang City Bureau of Agriculture and Anqiu City Government co-undertook the Conference. Nearly 200 participants attended this Conference, includingexperts from relevant research institutions and universities and representatives of agricultural enterprises, large scale growers and farmers.