Bioherbicides for
weed control
The better understanding of the genes of both microorganisms and plants has allowed scientists to isolate microbes (pathogens) whose genes match particular weeds and are effective in causing a fatal disease in those weeds.
Bioherbicides deliver more of these pathogens to the fields appplied when the weeds are most susceptible to illness.
History
Mycoherbicide
research to control agricultural and environmental weeds began in the 1940s.
The earliest
experiments simply involved moving indigenous fungi between populations
of target
weeds (e.g. the fungus Fusarium oxysporum used against prickly pear
cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica) in Hawai’i, before the release
of the Cactoblastis cactorum moth).
In the
1950s the Russians mass-produced the spores of Alternaria cuscutacidae and
applied them to the parasitic weed dodder (Cuscata spp.). In 1963 the
Chinese mass-produced a different fungus (Colletotrichum gloeosporioides f.
sp. cuscutae) for the same weed. They called their mycoherbicide ‘LuBao’
and an improved formulation is still in use today.
DeVine:
A liquid suspension of spores of the
fungus Phytophthora palmivora that
causes root rot in the weed plants , used against Strangle vine Morrenia odorata
Collego
Wettable powder containing the fungal
spores of Colletotrichum gleosporoides
and C. aeschynomone causing stem and
leaf blight , used against Joint vetch weed Aeschonyme
spp. in Rice
Bipolaris
It is a suspension of fungal spores of
Bipolaris sorghicola , used against
Johnson grass weed Sorghum halapense
Biolophos
Fermented product of Streptomyces hygroscopicus , used as
general herbicide
Product F
Product from Fusarium oxysporium , used against Orobranche in sunflower crop
ABG5003
Cercospora rodmanii -> used in
control of water hyacinth Eichhornia
crassips
Stumpout™
Cylindrobasidium
leave used against Acacia species in native vegetation &
water supplies
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