Abstract
The main aim of this study was to determine the effect of possible alternatives to methyl bromide (MB) on soil free-living nematode community dynamics in a greenhouse system. Three alternative technologies were examined: metham sodium (MS), dosage reduction of MB and MS by a virtually impermeable film (VIF) cover, and soil solarization (SS) combined with select biological control agents (BCA) (SS + BCA). Nematode populations were classified into four trophic groups: bacterivores (BF), fungivores (FF), plant-parasites (PP), and omnivore-predators (OP). Bacterivores were the most abundant trophic group, averaging 62.1% of the total number of nematodes. OP were the second most abundant trophic group and fungivores were the least abundant trophic group, averaging 3.5% of the total number of nematodes. All fumigation practices decreased the total number of nematodes, BF, FF, and PP. The impact of MS on the BF and on the total nematode number was found to be effective in comparison to treatments associated with typical MB application. The impact of MB and MS by VIF cover on the total number of nematodes, BF, FF, and PP, was similar to the impact associated with MB and MS. The effect of SS + BCA on the nematode populations was less pronounced than the effect of the other treatments. However, significant differences in soil total nematode abundance between the four trophic groups were observed between sampling periods (p 0.01). The fungivore/bacterivore ratio (F/B), fungivore/(bacterivore + fungivore) ratio (modified F/B) and trophic diversity (T) were found to reflect the temporal changes that occurred in the nematode community during the study period, but were not sensitive enough to discern differences between the treatments.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 95-113 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Journal of Sustainable Agriculture |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 20 Feb 2008 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Yun-Feng Chen and Zhi-Ping Cao are affiliated with the Department of Ecology and Ecological Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100094, China. Yosef Steinberger is affiliated with The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel (E-mail: steinby@mail. biu.ac.il). Address correspondence to: Zhi-Ping Cao at the above address (E-mail: zhipingc@ cau.edu.cn). The authors would like to thank Professor Liu Weizhi for his guidance on nematode classification and to the anonymous reviewers whose comments were very useful. This work was supported by the Sino-Italian Environmental Cooperation Project: “Transfer of Alternative Technology to the Use of Methyl Bromide and Capacity Building in the Soil Fumigation Sector.” Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, Vol. 31(4) 2008 Available online at http://jsa.haworthpress.com © 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.1300/J064v31n04_07
Keywords
- Nematode community
- Soil fumigation
- Tomato
- Trophic groups
