• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.396-402
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• 1997

Biocontrol of plant pathogens provides an alternative means of reducing the incidence of plant diseases without the negative aspects of chemical pesticides. Nowdays, as the resistant fungi about the chemical fungicides have revealed and the concern of environment has increased, the biological control of phytopathogenic fungi by the antagonistic microorganisms is very much indispensable. For the selection of strong antagonistic bacterium for biological control agent of rice leafblast and cucumber gray mold rot, the antifungal strain KL-3 strain was selected among 120 strains isolated from the rhizosphere soils. And the strain was identified to be a species of Bacillus subtilis or closely related strain. In several biochemical and in vitro antibiosis tests, antifungal substances of Bacillus sp. KL-3 were presumed heat stable, micromolecular antibiotic substances. In vivo test and vinyl house field test, the antifungal substances of Bacillus sp. KL-3 represented excellent biocontrol ability aganist Alternaria mali, Phyricularia oryzae, and Alternaria kikuchiana as well as broad spectrum of other fungi. In particular, Bacillus sp. KL-3 strain showed more predominant activity than some chemical fungicides against fungi shown to resist chemcal fungicides.