Using the nematophagous fungus Esteya vermicola to control the disastrous pine wilt disease

ABSTRACT

The present study evaluated the protective effects of the nematophagous fungus Esteya vermicola on the large pine trees of Mt. Wora, Jinju, South Korea for six years. When pine trees were treated with E. vermicola 110 days before artificial normal pinewood nematode (PWN) infection, 30–50% of the trees survived for six years. When pine trees were treated with E. vermicola one week after artificial normal PWN infection, 40% of the trees were saved. In contrast, all of the control trees were killed by pine wilt disease in the first year. Although it has been more than six years since the beginning of this experiment, the existence of E. vermicola inside the treated pine trees was successfully detected using a PCR method with two pairs of specific primers for E. vermicola. These results suggest that E. vermicola possesses great potential as a biocontrol agent to combat the disastrous pine wilt disease. This is the first report of using nematophagous fungi to control pine wilt disease in the field for a duration of over five years.

KEYWORDS:

• Pine wilt disease
• Esteya vermicola
• biocontrol
• protective effect
• survival rate
• PCR detection

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 31300543, 31300545], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2452013QN108, 2452015343] of Northwest A&F University, China, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, South Korea.