Environmental friendly product for disinfection of soil infected by potato cystnematodes.

Potato cyst nematode, also known as potato root nematode, is a pest doing large damage to the potato crop world wide. All previous chemical means to fight the pest have been banned urging alternatives to be found. In this project a promising, environmental friendly compound has been tested. All tests so far has been positive. But further optimization is required and will be done by skilled partners in the field. This is a truly "green" methhod for pest fighting since the compounds that are natural product based, will not kill the nematode but lure it out of it protective shell (the cyst) making it starve to death when no potato can be found. We have alsao been looking for other economically important cyst nematod pestes where this method and our compounds can have a potential use. These are in particular the soy and beet cyst nematodes. The rather promising, preliminary results will not be studied further in this project, but will eventually emerge into new project applications. However, it is also important to test the compounds to see if they may pose any potential problems for other organisms since we anticipate to release these as environmentally friendly compounds. The findings so far and in this context is promising. This will also be important in the regulatory input in the project.

The primary goal of this BIOTEK2021 is to show that environmental friendly chemical substances synthesized at NMBU is effective hatching agents for the potato cyst nematodes (PCN); golden cyst nematode (Globodera rostochiensis) and white cyst nematode (Globodera pallida), in a greenhouse trial. If this proof of principle project is successful the chemical compounds can be used as active ingredients in a plant protection product for the sanitation of potato cyst nematode infected soil. Nematodes are responsible for annual crop losses of approximately 125 billion USD worldwide. PCN are considered the most economically important nematode pests of potato and continues to be a quarantine pest throughout the world. PCN has been estimated to cause losses of 9% of total potato production worldwide, in total 30 million tons which represent a value of 3,4 billion GBP per year. Because many conventional nematicides have been de-registered for use due to safety and environmental concerns, an urgent need exist for novel, safe, environmental friendly and effective treatment of nematode infected soil. One accepted target for development of new active ingredients for treatment of nematode infected soil is hatching of the juveniles inside the cysts. If hatching of juveniles is stimulated in the absence of the potato plant the hatched worms die within a few weeks in the absence of their host plant. NMBU researchers have made novel chemical compounds with proven effects on the hatching of both golden cyst nematode (Globodera rostochiensis) and white cyst nematode (Globodera pallida) in a laboratory test assay. As world population is growing and potato is an essential food crop for farmers all over the world it is of great importance to identify effective methods for sanitation of PCN infected soil. This project can lead to the development of an effective treatment alternative in collaboration with plant protection companies avoiding both (heavy) metals and halogenated compounds.