Study of biocontrol properties of Trichoderma atroviride and diazotroph complexes and assessment of their environmental safety

Ensuring the production of high-quality crops determines the need to develop new environmentally safe approaches in the biological control of the spread of phytopathogens. The aim of the work was to study the biocontrol properties of monocultures and complexes of the fungus Trichoderma atroviride and diazotrophic bacteria Fischerella muscicola and Azotobacter chroococcum in relation to the phytopathogen Fusarium culmorum R/z-16, to evaluate the environmental safety of the antagonist strains used. For the first time there has been studied the ability of T. atroviride complexes and diazotrophs to biocontrol F. culmorum, the main causative agent of root rot in grain crops, in the soil. A model experiment to identify the biocontrol activity of strains was carried out in microcosms with soil inoculated with the studied microbial cultures. After 45 days of incubation, spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) of the ‘Bazhenka’ cultivar was sown on the soil surface and 7 days after the sowing, the growth and infection rates of the seedlings were evaluated. It was found that the complexes of T. atroviride + A. chroococcum + F. muscicola, as well as T. atroviride + F. muscicola had the strongest biocontrol effect, which reduced the development of root rot by 4.12–4.97 times relative to the infectious background without the introduction of antagonists. Under the influence of trichoderma and diazotrophs on an infectious background, the dry weight of wheat seedlings increased by 72.9 % compared with soil inoculation with F. culmorum monoculture R/z-16. The ecological safety of filtrates of liquid cultures of T. atroviride K-01P (dilution 1:100), F. muscicola 300 (dilution 1:10-1:100) for the preparation Ecolume and Daphnia magna crustaceans has been confirmed. Field research data for 2022-2023 indicate the absence of a negative effect of T. atroviride K-01P and F. muscicola 300 on native representatives of micromycetes and ammonifying bacteria in the soil of the root zone of wheat. The results of the study expand traditional ideas about the possibility of using fungi of the genus Trichoderma and diazotrophs in the biological control of fungal phytopathogens and determine the prospects of using microbial complexes based on them in agriculture.

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