Comparative efficacy of cucurbitacin phytonematicides and Velum on growth and fruit quality of watermelon cultivar ‘Congo’ and suppression of Meloidogyne enterolobii under field conditions
Date
2021-11-07
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor & Francis Group - Informa UK Limited
Abstract
Globally, the guava root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne enterolobii) is becoming an emerging threat of note in crops with or without Mi resistance genes. Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) cultivars are highly susceptible to Meloidogyne species, with all cultivars without genotypes with resistance to the genus. In contrast, nematode management options for watermelon production had since the withdrawal of fumigant nematicides been constrained. The objective of this study was to investigate the comparative efficacy of the locally-developed cucurbitacin phytonematicides and commercially available synthetic chemical nematicide Velum on growth and fruit yield and quality of watermelon cv. ‘Congo’, along with its accumulation of foliar nutrient elements and suppression of M. enterolobii population densities under field conditions. Nemarioc-AL and Nemafric-BL phytonematicides were each applied biweekly at 2% per seedling using 500 ml solution, while Velum was applied once using 500 ml solution at 0.08 ml/15 L chlorine-free water. At 90 days after the treatments, relative to untreated control, the two phytonematicides and Velum (a.i. fluopyram) significantly increased plant growth, fruit yield and quality, although with the accumulation of phosphorus in leaf tissues, with efficacies of the three products being comparable. Similarly, relative to untreated control, the three products significantly reduced nematode eggs and juveniles in roots and juveniles in soil, with efficacies that were significantly comparable. In conclusion, the benefits of phytonematicides on the productivity of watermelon cv. ‘Congo’ and suppression of population densities of M. enterolobii were comparable.
Description
The Version of Scholarly Record of this Article is published in Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B — Soil & Plant Science, 2022, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09064710.2021.1993323 . © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Keywords: Cucurbitacin phytonematicides; Meloidogyne enterolobii; nutrient elements; synthetic nematicides; total soluble solids; watermelon; Africa; South Africa.
item.page.type
Article
item.page.format
Keywords
Citation
Kgabo Martha Pofu & Phatu William Mashela (2022) Comparative efficacy of cucurbitacin phytonematicides and Velum on growth and fruit quality of watermelon cultivar ‘Congo’ and suppression of Meloidogyne enterolobii under field conditions, Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B — Soil & Plant Science, 72:1, 105-110, DOI: 10.1080/09064710.2021.1993323