Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is an emerging multi-drug-resistant global opportunistic pathogen of environmental, mainly plant-associated origin. It is also used as a biocontrol or stress protecting agent for crops in sustainable agricultural as well as in bioremediation strategies. In order to establish effective protocols to distinguish harmless from harmful strains, our discussion must take i...

abstract heated micaceous minerals under different commercial brand names (including vermiculite) are used as culture medium in greenhouses. heating minerals affects the release of elements, such as potassium, by changing their structure. the present study, investigates the ability of alfalfa, as one of the most important fodder around the world, to take up the non-exchangeable and structural p...

The nematode Steinernema carpocapsae infects and kills many pest insects in agro-ecosystems and is commonly used in biocontrol of these pests. Growth of the nematodes prior to distribution for biocontrol commonly results in deterioration of traits that are essential for nematode persistence in field applications. To better understand the mechanisms underlying trait deterioration of the efficacy...

The phyllosphere is colonized by complex microbial communities, which are adapted to the harsh habitat. Although the role and ecology of nonpathogenic microorganisms of the phyllosphere are only partially understood, leaf microbiota could have a beneficial role in plant growth and health. Pesticides and biocontrol agents are frequently applied to grapevines, but the impact on nontarget microorg...

Fermentation is an environmentally friendly method to improve feed quality. Fermented liquid feed and airtight stored moist crimped cereal grain systems that are of increasing importance in agricultural practice were studied. Both rely on spontaneous microbial developments with poorly understood population dynamics, resulting in unpredictable final quality. Temperature, fermentation time and in...

The intensive use of pesticides to control pests in agriculture has promoted several issues relating to environment. As chemical pesticides remain controversial, biocontrol agents originating from fungi could be an alternative. Among them, we highlight biocontrol agents derived from the fungi genus Trichoderma, which have been documented in limiting the growth of other phytopathogenic fungus in...

A new optimized semiquantitative yeast killer assay is reported for the first time. The killer activity of 36 yeast isolates belonging to three species, namely, Metschnikowia pulcherrima, Wickerhamomyces anomala and Torulaspora delbrueckii, was tested with a view to potentially using these yeasts as biocontrol agents against the wine spoilage species Pichia guilliermondii and Pichia membranifac...

We examined the efficacy of a bacterium for biocontrol of the root-knot nematode (RKN) Meloidogyne hapla in carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Among 542 bacterial isolates from various soils and plants, the highest nematode mortality was observed for treatments with isolate C1-7, which was identified as Bacillus cereus based on cultural and morphological ch...