Download Free Microbiological Control Of Eurasian Watermilfoil Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Microbiological Control Of Eurasian Watermilfoil and write the review.

Cellulolytic and pectinolytic microorganisms were isolated from the microbial populations naturally resident in the phyllosphere of Eurasian watermilfoil, Myriophyllum spicatum and of M. heterophyllum. The yield of their respective operative enzymes was maximized by growth in appropriate cellulose and pectin media; the organisms, when subsequently applied to the plants, accelerated the plants' necrosis and decline. That cellulose and pectin are particularly vulnerable target tissues in Myriophyllum spp. was confirmed by the significant increase in plant necrosis achieved over untreated controls by the simple addition of sterile cellulose and pectin media to respective test chambers. Presumably this reflected and selective stimulus provided by these substrates to the resident cellulolytic and pectinolytic microflora. A consortium of cyanobacteria associated with Myriophyllum was also found to accelerate necrosis, as did its sterile growth medium; again, presumably, as a reflection of the selective stimulus provided to the cyanobacteria in the phyllosphere. The species determination of phyllosphere residents was reflected in the significantly higher pathogenic potential of the isolates from M. spicatum to that species than to M. heterophyllum.
It is appropriate at this time to reflect on two decades of research in biological control of weeds with fungal plant pathogens. Some remarkable events have occurred in the last 20 years that represent a flurry of activity far beyond what could reasonably have been predicted. In 1969 a special topics review article by C. L. Wilson was published in Annual Reviews of Phytopathology that examined the literature and the potential for biological control of weeds with plant pathogens. In that same year, experiments were conducted in Arkansas that determined whether a fungal plant pathogen could reduce the infestation of a single weed species in rice fields. In Florida a project was under way to determine the potential use of a soil-borne plant pathogen as a means for controlling a single weed species in citrus groves. Work in Australia was published that described experiments that sought to determine whether a pathogen could safely and deliberately be imported and released into a country to control a weed of agricultural importance. All three projects were successful in the sense that Puccinia chondrillina was released into Australia to control rush skeleton weed and was released later into the United States as well, and that Colletotrichum gloeosporioides f.sp. aeschynomene and Phytophthora palmivora were later both marketed for the specific purpose of controlling specific weed species.