Description:
Growers in the horticultural sector (flowerbulbs, nurserystock, perennials and summerflowers) have to cope with several soil borne problems like fungi, nematodes and soil insects. There are no or very few effective pesticides or other measures available to control these diseases.
Research on the development of strategies to control these soil borne problems started a few years ago focusing on establishing and controlling soil health.
Methods under investigation are crop frequency, crop rotation, use of resistant varieties of economic and green manure crops, anaerobic biological soil disinfestation, the application of compost or chitin and the elevation of organic matter content.
Research objectives:
New and effective measures or combinations of measures resulting from this research will be tested in 2009, 2010 and 2011 against different soil borne problems in flowerbulbs, nurserystock crops, perennials and summerflowers.
Effective measures will be used to design a broad appicable strategy to improve soil health and control soil borne pests and diseases in horticulture.
In this project the effect of these measures on soil suppressiveness against specific soil borne pathogens will be tested in bioassays. Furthermore a set of biological, physical and chemical parameters will be measured to establish whether there is a correlation between the applied measures, soil suppressiveness and certain values of the determined parameters.
Results and products:
The final result will be a broad appicable strategy to improve soil health and control soil borne pests and diseases in horticulture. |
