Phytophthora is a dangerous disease of potatoes. The difficult agro-climatic conditions of 2021 exacerbated this problem in Russia. Climate change has affected the biology of the pathogen worldwide. Today we begin a detailed conversation about this pathogen. Let's start with the most pressing issue - modern control measures. In other articles, we will consider the origin, life cycle of the pathogen, the genetics of plant resistance and resistant varieties.
Since potato late blight is the most dangerous, there is a set of necessary measures to combat the disease: the use of resistant varieties and hybrids, the treatment of planting material with fungicides, the correct crop rotation, the use of mineral fertilizers in appropriate doses, periodic preventive treatments of plants with fungicides, and the selection of healthy planting material.
In Russia, recently they began to pay great attention to non-traditional methods of combating late blight. Thus, A.V. Filippov (All-Russian Research Institute of Phytopathology) proposed pre-planting treatment of tubers with low-frequency electric current, which attracted the interest of researchers in different countries; O. L. Ozeretskovskaya (AN Bach Institute of Biochemistry) and colleagues developed methods for the use of chemical and biological immunomodulators - elicitors that increase the immune properties of a plant; VG Dzhavakhia (Institute of Phytopathology) isolated a protein from Pseudomonas bacteria that inhibits viral and fungal parasites of potato, including phytophthora. Together with the Center for Bioengineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other institutions, they created a genetic construct and introduced it into potatoes. These transgenic plants greatly increase disease resistance. They can be used in the breeding process.
Thus, the modern concept of integrated potato protection is focused on the use of non-chemical (organizational, economic, agrotechnical and biological) methods and the limited use of chemical protection.
List of sources used:
- Filippov A.V. Potato late blight / A.V. Filippov // Supplement to the journal Plant Protection and Quarantine. - 2012. - No. 5. - S. 61-88.
- Dyakov T.Yu. Late blight - global and all-Russian problems [Electronic resource] - Access mode: vivovoco.ibmh.msk.su/VV/JOURNAL/NATURE/01_02/PHYTO.HTM.