title: Altering Transplantation Time to Avoid Periods of High Temperature Can Efficiently Reduce Bacterial Wilt Disease Incidence with Tomato.
abstract: Tomato bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum bacterium is a severe problem in Southern China, where relatively high environmental temperatures commonly prevails during the crop seasons. Previous research has indicated that bacterial wilt disease incidence generally increases during the warm months of summer leading to reduced tomato yield. Moreover, the efficacy of bio-organic fertilizers (BOFs)-organic compost fortified with pathogen-suppressive bacteria-is often lost during the periods of high environmental temperatures. Here we studied if the disease incidence could be reduced and the BOF performance enhanced by simply preponing and postponing the traditional seedling transplantation times to avoid tomato plant development during periods of high environmental temperature. To this end, a continuous, two-year field experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of BOF in two traditional (late-spring [LS] and early-autumn [EA]) and two alternative (early-spring [ES] and late-autumn [LA]) crop seasons. We found that changing the transplantation times reduced the mean disease incidence from 33.9% (LS) and 54.7% (EA) to 11.1% (ES) and 7.1% (LA), respectively. Reduction in disease incidence correlated with the reduction in R. Solanacearum pathogen density in the tomato plant rhizosphere and stem base. Applying BOF during alternative transplantation treatments improved biocontrol efficiency from 43.4% (LS) and 3.1% (EA) to 67.4% (ES) and 64.8% (LA). On average, the mean maximum air temperatures were positively correlated with the disease incidence, and negatively correlated with the BOF biocontrol efficacy over the crop seasons. Crucially, even though preponing the transplantation time reduced the tomato yield in general, it was still economically more profitable compared to LS season due to reduced crop losses and relatively higher market prices. Preponing and postponing traditional tomato transplantation times to cooler periods could thus offer simple but effective way to control R. solanacearum disease outbreaks.
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Organic Solid Waste Utilization, National Engineering Research Center for Organic-based Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang 1, Nanjing, PR China.
authors.forename: Zhong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Organic Solid Waste Utilization, National Engineering Research Center for Organic-based Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang 1, Nanjing, PR China; Institute of Agricultural Resources and the Environment, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences/Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nutrient Cycling and Farmland Conservation, Guangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Jian-Feng
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Organic Solid Waste Utilization, National Engineering Research Center for Organic-based Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang 1, Nanjing, PR China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Organic Solid Waste Utilization, National Engineering Research Center for Organic-based Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang 1, Nanjing, PR China.
authors.forename: Yi-An
authors.initials: YA
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Organic Solid Waste Utilization, National Engineering Research Center for Organic-based Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang 1, Nanjing, PR China.
authors.forename: Chun-Lan
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Organic Solid Waste Utilization, National Engineering Research Center for Organic-based Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang 1, Nanjing, PR China.
authors.forename: Xin-Lan
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Mei
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Organic Solid Waste Utilization, National Engineering Research Center for Organic-based Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang 1, Nanjing, PR China.
authors.forename: Qi-Rong
authors.initials: QR
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Organic Solid Waste Utilization, National Engineering Research Center for Organic-based Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang 1, Nanjing, PR China.
authors.forename: Yang-Chun
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: University of York, Department of Biology, Wentworth Way, York, YO10 5DD, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Ville-Petri
authors.initials: VP
authors.lastname: Friman
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D006358:Hot Temperature; D018551:Solanum lycopersicum / Q000382:microbiology*; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000382:microbiology; D043368:Ralstonia solanacearum / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors