Wenjing Li, Lirui Ren, Qingjie Li, Daqi Zhang, Xi Jin, Wensheng Fang, Dongdong Yan, Yuan Li, Qiuxia Wang, Aocheng Cao*.Evaluation of ethylicin as a potential soil fumigant in commercial tomato production in China. Science of The Total Environment, 2022,

https://doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158520.

Abstract

Recent increases in soil-borne plant disease have limited further expansion of some crops produced in protected agriculture. Soil fumigation effectively minimizes the impact of soil pathogens causing many diseases. We provide the first report of the efficacy of the Chinese fungicide ethylicin as a soil fumigant against the plant pathogens such as  Fusarium spp. and  Phytophthora spp., and against the plant parasitic nematode  Meloidogyne spp. We also examined ethylicin's impact on the physicochemical properties of soil, the soil's bacterial and fungal taxonomic composition, the plant growth of tomatoes, the enzyme activity of soil and tomato yield. Ethylicin fumigation significantly decreased the abundance of  Fusarium spp. and  Phytophthora spp. by 67.7 %-84.0 % and 53.8 %-81.0 %, respectively. It reduced  Meloidogyne spp. by 67.2 %-83.6 %. Ethylicin significantly increased the growth of tomato plants and tomato yield by 18.3 %-42.0 %. The soil's ammonium‑nitrogen concentration increased significantly in answer to ethylicin fumigation, while nitrate‑nitrogen concentration and the activity of soil urease decreased significantly. High-throughput gene sequencing had been used to show that ethylicin cut down the taxonomic soil bacteria diversity and bacterial abundance, but increased the soil fungi taxonomic diversity. Some genera of microorganisms increased, such as Firmicutes,  Steroidobacter and Chytridiomycota, possibly due to changes in the physicochemical properties of soil that differentially favored their survival. We conclude that ethylicin is efficacious as a soil fumigant and it would be a useful addition to the limited number of soil fumigants currently available.

Science of The Total Environment, IF="10.753

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36063939/