Browsing by Subject "biostimulantit"

Securing food production is an important objective, especially as climate change affects production conditions. Good crop yields are part of food security, but disease pressure and abiotic stress factors limit yield potential. Chemical plant protection products, which have traditionally been used in plant protection, pose an environmental risk and efforts are therefore being made to reduce their use and replace them with, for example, biological plant protection products. Biostimulants aim to improve crop yields. The aim of this study was to determine whether biomass products produced in different ways have antifungal or biostimulant effects. Three different concentrations of biomass products were used in the experiments. In screening experiments, the antifungal activity of biomass products was investigated in petri dish experiments to test their effect on the growth of two plant pathogenic fungi, Fusarium graminearum and Rhizoctonia solani. The biostimulant effect was investigated by a germination experiment on barley. In the following experiments, the effect of biomass products was investigated in the model organism Physcomitrium patens moss. P. patens was inoculated with two fungal isolates, Rhizoctonia solani and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and treated with biomass products. Biostimulant properties were observed on uninoculated P. patens. In addition, the study examined, whether the gene expressions of P. patens change due to the influence of biomass products using RT-qPCR. In Petri dish experiments, biomass products inhibited the growth of both F. graminearum and R. solani fungi. The highest concentration tested was most effective against fungi. The lowest biomass product concentration tested was most effective in inducing barley growth. Biomass product in combination with S. sclerotiorum infection caused death of P. patens, but the combined effect with R. solani infection induced P. patens growth. Gene expression of the three transcription factors tested and one defense gene changed by the interaction of biomass products and R. solani infection. Based on the results obtained in the study, biomass products have potential to be used in fungal disease control. The use of biomass products as biostimulants also seems promising. A lot of further research on biomass products is needed to understand their effects on different crops and pathogenic fungi.