Mulching the soil with polyethylene sheets before sowing during the hot season, increased the soil temperatures, which resulted in the control of soil-borne pathogens and weeds. This method was tested in a field heavily infested with Egyptian broomrape (Orobanche aegyptiaca L.). Soil was irrigated and mulched for 36 days during August–September 1977, prior to sowing carrot (Daucus carota L. ‘Nantes Tip Top’) seeds. Mulching increased soil temperatures by 8 to 12 C, up to 56 C in the top 5 cm. In the non-mulched plots the carrot plants became stunted due to heavy parasitization with broomrape and they were completely destroyed by the end of the season. In contrast, broomrape and other weeds were controlled in the mulched plots and the carrot plants grew normally. This effect was less pronounced in the border rows of the mulched plots. Mulching also greatly reduced the infestation of other weeds. Egyptian broomrape was also controlled in two other field experiments with carrots and eggplants (Solanum melongena L. ‘Black oval’). As compared with fumigation, this new method of control is economical, simple, nonhazardous, and does not employ toxic materials.
The effects of metham-sodium (MES) soil treatment, a varying number of benomyl foliar sprays (two, three and six) and combined treatments on control of lettuce drop disease were studied at two sites in Israel naturally infested with the pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. MES killed 85",, of the 5. sclerotiorum sclerotia in the top 10 cm of soil where initial populations were 0-6 and 1-6 viable sclerotia per kg soil at the two sites. Of the remaining viable sclerotia, only 30"(, produced apothecia. MES treatment alone reduced numbers of apothecia to 5",, of those counted in the unsprayed control treatment. Numbers of ascospores deposited on the crop in the MES-treated plots were 7-20% of those deposited on control plots. Lettuce drop decreased the total yield by 30",, in unsprayed control plots; MES application reduced the loss to 4°^ and also increased the number of marketable plants. Benomyl sprays alone also signiflcantly reduced numbers of apothecia and disease development and consequently increased yield, although not to the extent observed with the MES treatment alone. Combined treatments produced the best disease control, but this improvement was not accompanied by any major increase in yield compared to that with MES treatment alone.
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