Brewer’s Spent Grain with Yeast Amendment Shows Potential for Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation of Weeds and Pythium irregulare

Anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD) is a promising alternative to chemical fumigation for controlling soilborne plant pathogens and weeds. This study investigated the impact of brewer’s spent grain (BSG), locally available carbon source, on various weed species oomycete pathogen Pythium irregulare in ASD. Two greenhouse studies were conducted using BSG yeast at full reduced rates completely randomized design with four replicates two runs per study. In both studies, ASD treatments significantly decreased seed viability all inoculum, while promoting higher cumulative anaerobicity compared non-treated control. The addition had notable effect when combined but not rice bran. When used rates, supplementation enhanced efficacy BSG, providing comparable control rate most species, including redroot pigweed, white clover, yellow nutsedge. Interestingly, no treatment affected temperature. Furthermore, caused concentrations volatile fatty acids bran finding suggests that inclusion shows potential reducing input required effective disinfestation.