Six species of insects and a rust fungus have been successfully established for biocontrol of the weed Parthenium hysterophorus L. in Queensland, Australia. Effectiveness of biocontrol insects was evaluated at two properties in Queensland during 1996-97 based on an exclusion experiment using insecticides. Parthenium-infested plots with and without biocontrol insects were sampled at monthly inte...

Several Trichoderma virens (syn. Gliocladium virens) strains have good biocontrol activity against Rhizoctonia solani on cotton but lack some of the commercially desirable characteristics found in other Trichoderma species. In an attempt to combine these desirable characteristics, we used a highly effective biocontrol strain of T. virens in protoplast fusions with a strain of T. koningii, which...

Several mycoparasitic strains belonging to the filamentous fungal genus Trichoderma are promising candidates for the biological control of plant pathogenic fungi. When planning the application of antagonistic Trichoderma strains for the purposes of biological control, it is very important to consider the environmental parameters affecting the biocontrol agents in the soil. A series of abiotic a...

1. Where biocontrol programmes for invasive plants are in place, only one-third are fully successful. Integrated weed management (IWM) emphasizes the use of several complementary control measures. 2. We used models of increasing complexity to determine which parameters affect site occupancy of an invasive shrub, Mimosa pigra , in tropical Australia. Two introduced biocontrol agents have spatial...

Some soil bacteria protect plants against soil-borne diseases by producing toxic secondary metabolites. Such beneficial biocontrol bacteria can be used in agricultural systems as alternative to agrochemicals. The broad spectrum toxins responsible for plant protection also inhibit predation by protozoa and nematodes, the main consumers of bacteria in soil. Therefore, predation pressure may favou...

We examined the efficacy of a bacterium for biocontrol of the root-knot nematode (RKN) Meloidogyne hapla in carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Among 542 bacterial isolates from various soils and plants, the highest nematode mortality was observed for treatments with isolate C1-7, which was identified as Bacillus cereus based on cultural and morphological ch...

Historically, research in biocontrol has yielded discoveries of both fundamental biology and solutions for practical problems in agriculture. Advances on both fronts will be furthered by a better understanding of the complex ecology that surrounds the disease-retardant interactions of microorganisms and plants. The emerging tools of modern biology afford increasingly sophisticated approaches to...

The strains of the yeast Metschnikowia pulcherrima have strong biocontrol activity against various microorganisms. Biocontrol activity of M. pulcherrima largely depends on its iron immobilizing pigment pulcherrimin. Biocontrol activity of pulcherrimin producing strain, M. pulcherrima UMY15, isolated from local vineyards, was tested on different molds that cause food spoilage. M. pulcherrima UMY...

—I hypothesized that the naturally elevated Ni concentration of Melanotrichus boydi (718–789 mg g21) might protect this insect species against pathogen attack. I contrasted survival of M. boydi against survival of the low-Ni mirid Lygus hesperus when treated with three entomopathogenic biocontrol agents. Biocontrol agents used were the fungus, Beauveria bassiana, and infective juveniles of two ...