Biological Control of Orobanche Ramosa by Fusarium Solani

Orobanche ramosa (broomrape) is a widespread parasitic weed of many Solanaceouse crop species, such as tobacco or tomato, and attaches to many other species, including ornamentals and weeds. It is mainly distributed in the Mediterranean area, central Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East (Press and Graves, 1995).Many fungi were isolated from diseased Orobanche plants, and some of them proved to be mycoherbicides for biological control of broomrapes (Galdames and Diaz, 2010). F. oxysporum f.sp. orthoceras obtained from diseased O. cumana tested in soil with sunflower as a host plant was able to reduce the number of attached and emerged Orobanche seedlings by about 90% (Bedi and Donchev, 1991). F. oxysporum f. sp. orthoceras on O. cumana was also tested by Thomas et al. (1998). F. arthroporioides and F. oxysporum isolated in Israel from O. aegyptiaca were shown to be effective in reducing broomrape growth (Thomas et al., 1999). Muller -Stover (2001) showed two isolates of Ulocladium botrytis and F. oxysporum f.sp. orthoceras caused necroses on both O. cumana and O. crenata (Müller-Stöver et al., 2002).The development of an appropriate formulation which allows successful application of fungal propagules will determine the success of Fusarium in agriculture applications. The encapsulation of fungal propagules in a solid matrix ‘Pesta’ showed 70% reduction of Orobanche emergence when wheat flour kaolin granules containing chlamydospore rich biomass was applied. Some toxins produced by fungi of the genus Fusarium proved to be able to inhibit germination of O. ramosa seeds, and their practical use in integrated strategies of parasitic plant management has been proposed (Zonno IJABBR2014eISSN: 2322-4827