Activity of glucosinolates as biofumigant against certain soil-borne diseases / Radwa Yehia Youssif ; Supervised Mohamed Abdelhady Kandil , Ibrahim Saleh Ahmed Abdallah , Sayed Ahmed Abdelrahman

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Agriculture - Department of Entomology Entomology and Pesticides

Indian mustard (Brassica juncea), as a potential biofumigant alternative to the restricted fumigant methyl bromide, is gaining attention in sustainable vegetable production. To evaluate its biofumigation potential, in vitro and greenhouse studies have been done against Rhizoctonia solani. Greenhouse experiments have been also conducted against Meloidogyne incognita. Several treatments were conducted against R. solani (i.e. dry plants, seed meal, seed powder, methanol extract, and fresh plants at the vegetative and flowering stage).The results showed that the hexane defatted seed meal was the most efficient treatment with a disease severity index of 38.4%, while dried plant treatment was the lowest one. Two treatments were tested against M. incognita (defatted seed meal and seed powder).Two doses; 2 and 1 % were the most effective as recorded 100 % nematode reduction. Thus, two tissue culture techniques, cell suspension and hairy roots cultures were used to enhance the biofumigation potential of mustard through increasing the content of sinigrin (major source of glucosinolates).The content of sinigrin was 1239.13 and 903.72 mg/kg DW for hairy root and cell culture, respectively, while this content in the normally cultivated plants at the inflorescence emergence was 712.63 mg/kg DW. This study opens a new avenue for further research on the potential application of mustard as a promising biofumigant and the adoption of hairy root and cell suspension techniques to boost the biocidal activity of glucosinolates

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