Biological Control of Podosphaera Xanthii the Causal Agent of Squash Powdery Mildew Disease by Upregulation of Defense-Related Enzymes Yaser M
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Hafez et al. Egyptian Journal of Biological Pest Control (2018) 28:57 Egyptian Journal of https://doi.org/10.1186/s41938-018-0058-8 Biological Pest Control RESEARCH Open Access Biological control of Podosphaera xanthii the causal agent of squash powdery mildew disease by upregulation of defense-related enzymes Yaser M. Hafez1*, Asmaa S. El-Nagar2, Abdelnaser A. Elzaawely2, Said Kamel3 and Hanafey F. Maswada2 Abstract Squash (Cucurbita pepo L.), one of the most important vegetable crops for human nutrition all over the world, is infected by many diseases, particularly powdery mildew caused by Podosphaera xanthii (syn. Sphaerotheca fuliginea), which is considered the most serious disease causing yield losses. This research study was conducted to investigate the role of Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus chitinosporus, Bacillus pumilus, Bacillus megaterium, Bacillus polymexa, Trichoderma harzianum,andTrichoderma viridi on squash leaves infected with P. xanthii under laboratory and greenhouse conditions. Results indicated that all treatments significantly inhibited the conidial germination of P. xanthii than the control. A significant decrease in the disease symptoms, severity, and the area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) was registered in squash plants sprayed with the tested bio-agents, particularly B. subtilis, B. pumilus,and T. harzianum. The activity of defense-related enzymes, i.e., catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POX), and polyphenol oxidase (PPO), were significantly upregulated as results of most treatments. Light and scanning electron microscopic (SEM) investigation showed that the morphological shape of P. xanthii was abnormal and the pathogen growth was limited in bio-agent-treated plants compared to control plants that showed dramatic infection. Bio-agent treatments significantly increased growth and yield attributes of squash plants over control. Overall, the results showed possibility of using the tested bio-agents to control squash powdery mildew disease as an alternative to fungicides’ use that is harmful for human health and polluting the environment. Keywords: Bacillus sp., Trichoderma sp., Powdery mildew, Squash, Spore germination, Antioxidant enzymes Background and biological control (Hafez et al. 2008). Control of Squash (Cucurbita pepo L.) is exposed to different plant such diseases based mainly on recommended chemical pathogens causing serious diseases and yield losses. Pow- fungicides that are not healthy because of their hazardous dery mildew is the most serious disease that attacks effects on human, animals, plants, and useful organisms, squash plants and causes 30–50% of yield losses as well as developing pathogen resistance (Abdel-Monaim (El-Naggar et al. 2012). The causal agent of cucurbit et al. 2012). To overcome these problems, suitable control powdery mildew disease is Podosphaera xanthii, which measurements and alternative safe methods, such as is one of the most important limiting factors of cucurbit cheap and friendly environment control methods, are production all over the world (Tanaka et al. 2017). Plant needed. Biological control methods could be considered diseases are controlled by agreeable means, like resistant as alternatives of chemical control. Bacillus spp. are safe varieties, chemical fungicides, natural production, oils, and have high possibilities of disease control as they are located everywhere in nature and exhibit high thermal tolerance by forming resistant spores (Tanaka et al. 2017). * Correspondence: [email protected] 1EPCRS Excellence Center, Plant Pathology and Biotechnology Laboratory, Bacillus subtilis is one of the antagonistic microorgan- Department of Agricultural Botany, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh isms that is used as a bio-control agent against soil-borne University, Kafr-Elsheikh 33516, Egypt and foliar diseases (Muis et al. 2015). Bacillus spp. possesses Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Hafez et al. Egyptian Journal of Biological Pest Control (2018) 28:57 Page 2 of 8 antifungal activity against plant pathogens (Lee et al. 2013). separately suspended in tap water, and number of cells − Bacillus megaterium is a plant growth-promoting rhizobac- was adjusted to 109 cell ml 1, using a hemocytometer teria that plays an important role in controlling plant dis- slide. For comparison with the tested bio-agents, plants eases (Porcel et al. 2014). Trichoderma sp. is able to attack were sprayed by distilled water as a negative control (C). other fungi, due to its production of antibiotics that affect In addition, widely used fungicide, Topas-100® (10.0% other microbes (Harman 2006). Trichoderma harzianum is Penconazole “w/v” [(R, S-1-(2-(2, 4-dichlorophenyl) -Q an important bio-control agent for several plant diseases pentyl)-1H-1, 2, 4-triazole]), was sprayed, at the recom- − (Soliman et al. 2017). The upregulation or downregulation mended dose of 0.25 ml l 1 as a positive control. of antioxidant enzymes is correlated with resistance in several host/pathogen combinations, particularly obli- gate parasites, such as powdery mildew and rust dis- Spore germination of Podosphaera xanthii as affected by eases(Hafezetal.2014a, 2014b;Abdelaaletal.2014; tested bio-agents Hafez et al. 2016; Hafez et al. 2017). Conidial spores of squash powdery mildew were ob- The present study aimed to investigate the efficacy of the tained from young sporulating lesions. To avoid the old antifungal and bacterial bio-agents to control the squash unviable conidia, the lesions were gently shaken by a powdery mildew disease caused by P. xanthii under green- glass rod, and 24 h later (as recommended by (Godwin house conditions and their effects on the activity of et al. 1987), new conidia were deposited on glass slides defense-related enzymes, growth, and yield attributes. according to Nair et al. (1962). Slides were previously cleaned by ethyl alcohol and air dried before covering Materials and methods with thin smears of 2% water agar, amended with Plant material and experimental design filter-sterilized culture filtrate of the tested antagonist. Squash seeds (Cucurbita pepo L., cv. Eskandarani) were Slides were placed on V-shaped glass rods in sterilized sown in a clay loam soil and grown under greenhouse Petri-dishes, containing several layers of water-moistened conditions at Sakha Agricultural Research Station, Agri- filter papers. Slides with conidia were incubated at 25 °C cultural Research Center, Egypt. The experiment was for 24 h under continuous light (Reifschneider et al. 1985) conducted in a randomly complete block design (RCBD), before microscopically examined, at × 100 magnifica- with three replicated plots for each treatment. Squash tion, to determine the spore germination. Conidia seeds were cultivated at spacing of 60 cm between plants were considered to have germinated if a germ tube, in rows and 80 cm between plant rows at the rate of three at least as long as the width, was produced (Menzies seeds “per hill.” The seedlings were thinned to one per hill et al. 1991). Percentages of germination were calcu- after 15 days after sowing (DAS). Squash plants in all plots lated for 100 conidia on a slide. Three slides were ex- received all the recommended agricultural practices. amined for each treatment. Agar-free culture filtrate slides were used as a control treatment. Tested treatments The efficacy of the bio-agents (two fungal and five bac- terial strains) comparing to the fungicide (Topas-100) Pathogenic fungal inoculation for controlling squash powdery mildew disease was Natural infection with P. xanthii conidia, the causal tested under greenhouse conditions. Bacillus subtilis, agent of squash powdery mildew, was conducted under Bacillus pumilus, and Bacillus chitinosporus were previ- greenhouse conditions. Infected plants used as inoculum ously isolated from the surface of healthy cucumber and source (susceptible host Eskandarani) were uniformly in- squash leaves and identified according to Kamel (2003), oculated by freshly collected conidia by placing heavy in- while B. megaterium, Bacillus polymexa, and fungal fected plants of squash which are sensitive to P. xanthii strains (Trichoderma harzianum and Trichoderma viridi) inoculation. were obtained from the Microbiology Department, Soil, Water and Environment Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center (ARC), Giza, Egypt. Trichoderma harzia- Disease assessment num and T. viridi were grown on PDA medium for The disease severity of squash leaves at 45 DAS was 10 days, then their spores and mycelial suspensions were assessed as described by Descalzo et al. (1990). Nine − separately prepared and adjusted to about 107 spore ml 1 random plants were used for each replicate. Severity with sterilized water, using a hemocytometer slide, while of powdery mildew was estimated based on the per- B. subtilis, B. polymexa, B. pumilus, B. chitinosporus,and centage of affected leaf area. The mean of area under B. megaterium were separately grown in nutrient liquid disease progress curve (AUDPC) for each replicate medium in 250-ml flasks and kept on an orbital shaker at was calculated