Sounds promising . I always think about the ridiculous scale farmers work on. What if they inoculate a plant where it kills some bug which eats it and five others. Then there will be acre upon acre where that natural bug can't exist.

This thread is just begging for the mention of harpin proteins / Messenger / Axiom.

Indeed Brandon, that's yet another similar road being taken. I believe we're at the cusp of nothing short of a revolution in plant care and pest and pathogen management.

Is this fungi-based pest resistance restricted to pests that attack at or below soil level?

Makes me think of American Chestnut tree; I read somewhere that the pathogen killing them is countered by a microbe in the soil, so the blight kills the tree down to (but not below) the ground, leaving a stump that can put out shoots, which get infected once they're large enough to get deeply furrowed bark. IIRC, anyway.

Richard.

drrich, the specific thing I started out talking about-and which I'm still working out in my head-is the use of especially some species within Trichoderma which apparently can create this cascading effect which ultimately can lead to broad-based increase in the host plant's production of protective substances generally. As such, this would include everything from above and below-ground pathogens to insect attacks. Pretty heady stuff if you ask me.

Now I'm pretty good at this horticulture thing, but when you get down to the level of biochemistry, mycology, and so on, I'm a little kid in a room full of grown-ups! But I'm working on it. Brandon brought up a similar item that's being worked on, but the specific example that got me going down this road was an article I just saw from Arborist's News, the publication put out by the ISA (International Society of Arboriculture) Dec. issue. I left that thing at home, but as I said, I have a personal interest in determining the applicability of such techniques in a very specific area of tree production, the results of which I will keep to myself for now. But overall, this is exciting, and as I learn more, I'll get back to this.

OK so I've been cryptic enough about this matter. Here then are three actual products containing three different "biologicals".....that is, living organisms, with a brief rundown of what I'm talking about:

First, there's Trichoderma harzanium Strain T22, trade name "Trianum". When applied to soil, rapidly colonizes roots increasing nutrient uptake, as well as drought tolerance. It directly outcompetes pathogens for nutrients while simultaneously producing antibiotic compounds which directly attack said pathogens. Can directly parasitize a wide range of pathogenic fungi and fungi-like oomycetes, including Armillaria, Pythium, Phytophthora, Rhizoctonia, Botrytis, and Fusarium. That's quiter a list!

Baccilus subtilis Strain QST713, trade name "Serenade". Capable of controlling Botrytis cinerea, Phytophthora and Pythium. Also is a plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, promoting increased nutrient uptake and most impressively to me anyway, causes induced resistance to a wide range of potential disease organisms. Ease of storage for this one makes it a realistic option for a number of purposes, including just general plant establishment. Studies have shown it causes plants to produce defensive compounds in all plant parts, so an application to soil at planting can infer reduced susceptibility to a range of pathogens and insect pests! Awesome stuff.

Third one on this list is an entompathogenic fungus-Beauveria bassiana Strain ATCC 74040, trade name "Naturalis". Acts as a parasite to many insect and mite species, including whitefly, spider mites, aphids, thrips, and more.

One word of caution about my reportage here: I have only just skimmed the surface. This stuff gets complicated quickly. It's a far cry from "what do I spray" or "how do I kill that insect" mindset that chemical protective agents tend to give us. This is both more difficult, due to this complexity, and also far more promising in the long run, as these materials, unlike their chemical alternatives, are not toxic across a wide spectrum of life, have the ability to set up shop and remain in the system, in some cases more or less indefinitely, and are highly specific in their actions. As far as I'm concerned, this is the future of both plant insect and disease control, as well as plant nutrient delivery systems. Again, this is much more complex than "what brand of fertilizer should I buy"...or how much fertilizer does that plant "need?" kind of things...into the realm of living organisms, which hey, isn't that the goal?

There's much, much more to be learned here, but if you ask me, this is an exciting new direction things are taking, and not a moment too soon.

It is interesting, with a lot of potential. One thing about this approach vs. the pesticides, though. Both the biological products themselves, and their pathogen targets, are alive and will be subject to mutation. I thought about that when you mentioned antibiotics; resistance to such is a big problem in human medicine because germs develop resistance. And unlike chemicals, once introduced to the environment, some of these products may stay for the very long-term, included their mutated descendants.

I'm guardedly optimistic that overall considerable good will come out of this, though. Would be nice to have more targeted options, so we don't wipe out bees when we're trying to kill someone else.

Richard.

Yup. At its best, some of these treatments would be akin to inoculating the soil for the long term. You know, I got interested in mycorrhizae a long darn time ago, and it has been consistently disappointing in terms of taking what nature is doing everywhere and trying to apply it to our own projects. If you had a known viable strain of a mycorrhizal fungus, you didn't necessarily know that it would survive on your new site buy simply spreading spores or whatever form of propagules it comes as. So to hear of progress on that front is good news. I may be a little bit out of the loop, but from all I'd heard over the years, it was only in nearly sterile soils, like mine tailings, etc. that the researchers could get a convincing result and whenever such products were trialed in more typical situations, it had been hard to prove a good response. But now, I do believe we're moving off that base and into new territory.

Mycorrhizzal products came out to great aplomb some years ago. The most dramatic results have occurred in the most extreme situations...such as mine tailings. Beyond that, results have proved mixed. better using than not using anything to help promote plant growth...but the same can be said for fertilizer. In the case of mycorrhizae, what kind(s) used on what species plant has proven difficult to be able to create commercial formulations, for reasons listed above.

Let's call this the new frontier of biological control. Bacteria as well as fungus are what are being looked at.

As far as chemicals are concerned, it used to be broad spectrum control. The trend has been and continues to be for more targeted mechanisms. This is also the trend for these biological control agents.

Why do I include these together? If it is used as a fertilizer, it's fertilizer. If it's used as a herbicide, an insecticide, a fungicide, then that is what it is. I've seen a few of these that pose greater problems than the traditional chemicals they purport to be replacing. But it's safe, so the reps tell me, because it's natural.

There is in the field of plant pathology a gene for gene model of resistance. It's one of the more important concepts in the field. Simply put, it means that for every pathogenic fungus out there, there is one specific mechanism of resistance. Specific problem, specific solution.

This is where the development of these biological controls rests. Specific problem, specific solution. To borrow an analogy from medicine, it's akin to antibiotics. Say goodbye to the broad-spectrum controls and say hello to controls that may be as specific as this strain controls this pest on this plant. Does it get more specific, such as soil types, specific pH ranges, or environmental conditions (temperature ranges, humidity)? It gets very complex very quickly, and while the promise is huge, there are significant practical hurdles to get there. Those hurdles do nothing to the trends: This is the direction plant pest control has been headed for quite a while, and will continue to head, for a number of reasons.

Indeed, this is why this is exciting to me-the increased precision and efficacy being offered by some of these newer treatments takes us beyond where we've been with mycorrhizae for the last 15 or 20 years. In particular, if we can "prime the pump" so to speak....increase the plant's ability to hook up with a mycorrhizal associate, that's real progress, compared to the disappointing results I mentioned above. In particular, the Serenade offers promise I think, as it is easier than the fungal organisms to keep alive and viable prior to use. That's been another downfall with these "biologicals"....the difficulty in keeping them viable on the shelf. The bacterial ones seem to "keep" better. And if this in turn causes host plants to develop more mycorrhizal associates, so much the better.

I'm thinking too in terms of crops where you purposely want defensive compounds in the leaves (or whatever plant part) to be boosted. This offers real promise, whereas nothing I'm aware of from the past could do this. A real breakthrough.