Project details
Status: Current
At a glance
- Powdery scab (Spongospora subterranea) is an economically important potato disease that reduces yield and tuber quality, by reducing root function and forming scabby skin blemishes on tubers.
- The disease is a significant threat to sustainable production globally with no single treatment offering adequate control. The soilborne disease is persistent and challenging to control as it produces tough, dormant resting structures that can survive in the soil for up to ten years.
- This research is developing a non-fungicidal soil treatment with potential to reduce powdery scab infection. The soil treatment behaves like a decoy or bait for powdery scab infective zoospores, interfering with their ability to locate and infect potato roots and tubers.
About the project
Powdery scab (Spongospora subterranea) disease of potatoes is difficult to control. It produces tough dormant resting structures (sporosori) that persist in the soil for up to ten years. When potatoes are planted, the resting structures germinate and release short lived spores (zoospores) that move through the soil and infect potato roots.
Previous research discovered that potato roots exude compounds that stimulate the germination of powdery scab resting spores and attract the released zoospores towards the potato root. The short-lived and fragile zoospores need to find a host potato root within a few hours or they perish.
This research aims to demonstrate how non-fungicidal decoy compounds divert powdery scab zoospores away from potato roots and reduce infection, disease and crop loss.
The goal is to develop a non- fungicidal method of controlling powdery scab disease that allows potato crops to be planted more frequently in the same soil. This has potential to improve both the environmental impact of potato production and the economic return to growers.
The research approach
The research will:
- establish the most effective formulation, rate, application frequency and timing of non-fungicidal compounds
- investigate the impacts of treatments on soil health
- measure how well the treatments perform on different disease inoculum loads in the soil
- measure the impact of non-fungicidal treatments on potato yield and quality compared to traditional control methods
The first stage of laboratory and pot trails will help refine treatments to be field tested. For the field trials we will use a novel approach to test different rates and combinations of decoy compounds by burying customised ‘ollas’, terracotta pots that slowly release the treatment into the soil.
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For more information contact:
Dr Jonathan Amponsah | jonathan.amponsah@utas.edu.au
Thi Thanh Hien Nguyen | PhD candidate | thanhhien.nguyen@utas.edu.au
Acknowledgements:
‘Sustainably growing horticulture value in cool climate Australia’ (AS20004) is funded through Frontiers developed by Hort Innovation, with coinvestment from the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, Simplot, Premium Fresh, Bejo, Potatoes New Zealand, The Scottish Society of Plant Research, Botanical Resources Australia, South Pacific Seeds and contributions from the Australian Government and contributions from the Australian Government.