In a recent study, 45 species of crop and weed plants were screened for their susceptibility to P. capsici. Although 22 crop species succumbed to the disease, 14 did not.
Mohammad Babadoost, a plant pathologist in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, believes that rotating the 14 resistant vegetable varieties may serve to wait out the pathogen until it is safe to once again plant pumpkins or other crops susceptible to P. capsici.
"Crop rotation is already being used by pumpkin growers as an important component of disease management," Babadoost said. "Most pumpkin growers in Illinois follow at least a short-term crop rotation. However, most growers have experienced heavy losses when carrot, lima beans, pea, pepper, snap bean, and tomato were grown prior to pumpkin."
In order to make crop rotation a successful solution to waiting out the pathogen, a critical question remains to be answered: How long does the pathogen stay alive in the soil?
"Unfortunately, we don't know how long," Babadoost said. "Currently, I have a graduate student investigating that. We are trying to work out the problem piece by piece, then develop effective strategies to manage this disease. Definitely, the study that [Donglan] Tian completed provided us with very valuable information in dealing with this destructive pathogen."
Soybean, corn, and wheat, the major crops grown in Illinois, did not become infected, and there is no report indicating that these crops are hosts of P. capsici. The other 11 vegetable crops that, when inoculated with P.
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Contact: Debra Levey Larson
dlarson@uiuc.edu
217-244-2880
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
10-May-2004