• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2014

The possibility of using hyphomycete fungi as suitable biocontrol agents against greenhouse whitefly has led to the isolation of various insect pathogenic fungi. Among them is Beauveria bassiana, one of the most studied entomopathogenic fungi. The objective of this study was to use B. bassiana M130 as an insecticidal agent against the greenhouse whitefly. M130 isolated from infected insects is known to be a biocontrol agent against greenhouse whitefly. Phylogenetic classification of M130 was determined according to its morphological features and 18S rRNA sequence analysis. M130 was identified as B. bassiana M130 and showed chitinase (342.28 units/ml) and protease (461.70 units/ml) activities, which were involved in the invasion of the host through the outer cuticle layer, thus killing them. The insecticidal activity was 55.2% in petri-dish test, 84.6% in pot test, and 45.3% in field test. The results of this study indicate that B. bassiana has potential as a biological agent for the control of greenhouse whitefly to replace chemical pesticides.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.580-595
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• 2021

Although late blight is an important disease in ecofriendly potato cultivation in Korea, it is highly dependent on the use of eco-friendly agricultural materials and the development of biological control technology is low. It is a necessary to develop an effective biocontrol agent to inactivate late blight in the field. AFB2-2 strain is a gram-positive with peritrichous flagella. It can utilize 20 types of carbon sources, like L-arabinose, and D-trehalose at 35℃. The optimal growth temperature of the strain is 37℃. It can survive at 20-50℃ in tryptic soy broth. The maximum salt concentration tolerated by AFB2-2 strain is 7.5% NaCl. AFB2-2 strain inhibited the mycelial growth of seven plant pathogens by an average inhibitory zone of 10.2 mm or more. Among the concentrations of AFB2-2, 10⁷ cfu/ml showed the highest control value of 85.7% in the greenhouse. Among the three concentrations of AFB2-2, the disease incidence and severity of potato late blight at 10⁷ cfu/ml was lowest at 0.07 and 6.7, respectively. The nucleotide sequences of AFB2-2 strain were searched in the NCBI GenBank; Bacillus siamensis strain KCTC 13613, Bacillus velezensis strain CR-502, and Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain DSM7 were found to have a genetic similarity of 99.7%, 99.7%, and 99.5%, respectively. The AFB2-2 strain was found to harbor the biosynthetic genes for bacillomycin D, iturin, and surfactin. Obtained data recommended that the B. velezensis AFB2-2 strain could be considered as a promising biocontrol agent for P. infestans in the field.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.195-203
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• 2022

Zea mays, known as maize or corn, is a major staple crop and an important source of energy for humans and animals, thus ensuring global food security. Approximately 9.4% of the loss of total annual corn production is caused by pathogens including fungi, bacteria, and viruses, resulting in economic losses. Although the use of fungicides is one of the most common strategies to control corn diseases, the frequent use of fungicides causes various health problems in humans and animals. In order to overcome this problem, an eco-friendly control strategy has recently emerged as an alternative way. One such eco-friendly control strategy is the use of beneficial microorganisms in the control of plant pathogens. The beneficial microorganisms can control the plant pathogens in various ways, such as spatial competition with plant pathogens, inhibition of fungal or bacterial growth via the production of secondary metabolites or antibiotics, and direct attack to plant pathogens via enzyme activity. Here, we reviewed microorganisms as biocontrol agents against corn diseases.

• Mycobiology
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.376-384
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• 2014

Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) is one of the most important medicinal crops in many parts of the world. In this study, the effects of microelements, antioxidants, and bioagents on Fusarium oxysporum, F. solani, and Macrophomina phaseolina, the causal pathogens of root rot and wilt diseases in roselle, were examined under field conditions. Preliminary studies were carried out in vitro in order to select the most effective members to be used in field control trials. Our results showed that microelements (copper and manganese), antioxidants (salicylic acid, ascorbic acid, and EDTA), a fungicide (Dithane M45) and biological control agents (Trichoderma harzianum and Bacillus subtilis) were significantly reduced the linear growth of the causal pathogens. Additionally, application of the previous microelements, antioxidants, a fungicide and biological control agents significantly reduced disease incidence of root rot and wilt diseases under field conditions. Copper, salicylic acid, and T. harzianum showed the best results in this respect. In conclusion, microelements, antioxidants, and biocontrol agents could be used as alternative strategies to fungicides for controlling root rot and wilt diseases in roselle.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.55-55
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• 2015

Rust is one of the most destructive diseases on economically important plants such as agricultural and horticultural crops, as well as forest trees [1]. Chemical treatment is the most effective means to control rust, but use of the chemical fungicides involves inevitable risks to human health and environment [2]. Unfortunately, biocontrol is currently impracticable for rust disease management [3]. It is necessary to exploit biocontrol agents to help prevent rust diseases. As a fundamental research for future development of biocontrol agents for rusts, biodiversity of hyperparasites occurring on rust fungi was investigated. During 2006-2010, 197 fungal isolates of the rust hyperparasites were collected and isolated from various combinations of mycohosts and plant hosts in many regions of Korea. Based on morphological and molecular data, they were identified as 8 genera and 12 species. Besides, phylogenetic relationships between the hyperparasites and related taxa were inferred. A total of 114 isolates of Pseudovirgaria were obtained from rust pustules of Phragmidium spp. and Pucciniastrum agrimoniae infecting rosaceous plants. Phylogenetic analysis using multigene sequences revealed a high level of genetic variability among many isolates of Pseudovirgaria and close correlation between the isolates and mycohosts. Only two species of Pseudovirgaria, P. hyperparasitica and P. grisea are often difficult to distinguish by their morphological similarity, but on the molecular basis they were clearly differentiated from each other. There had been no previous record of P. grisea outside Europe, but the present study has proved its presence in Korea. Among six distinct groups (five of P. hyperparasitica and one of P. grisea) within the Pseudovirgaria isolates, each lineage of P. hyperparasitica was closely associated with specific mycohosts and thus might have cospeciated with their mycohosts, which probably led to coevolution. Although P. grisea possesses a host preference for Phragmidium species occurring on Rubus, it was not specific for a mycohost. P. grisea seems to evolve in the direction of having a broad mycohost range. Seventeen isolates of Verticillium-like fungi were isolated from rust sori. Based on morphological data and DNA sequence analysis, the isolates were identified as three Lecanicillium species, viz. L. attenuatum, Lecanicillium sp. 1, Lecanicillium sp. 2, and V. epiphytum. The unidenified two species of Lecanicillium appear to be previously unknown taxa. Sixty-six isolates of miscellaneous hyphomycetes belonging to 6 species of 5 genera were obtained from pustules of rust fungi. On the basis of morphological and molecular analyses, the miscellaneous hyphomycetes growing on rusts were identified as Acrodontium crateriforme, Cladophialophora pucciniophila, Cladosporium cladosporioides, Phacellium vossianum, Ramularia coleosporii, and R. uredinicola.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.26 no.2 s.71
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• pp.89-97
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• 1987

Antagonistic microorganisms from rhizosphere soil were isolated, identified, and applied successfully as the biocontrol agents of damping-off caused by Rhizoctonia spp. Rhizosphere antagonists isolated from rhizosphere soil were identified as Trichoderma viride, T. harzianum, T. hamatum, T. polysporum, Gliocladium sp., Pseudomonas fluorescence, P. stutzeri, P. cepacia, Enterobacter sp., Serratia sp. and Erwinia herbicola. Of these, the most promising ones in vitro were T. virdie, T. harzianum, Gliocladium sp., Serratia sp., P. stutzeri, and P. cepacia. These above six antagonists were efficient in reducing disease incidence to $40{\sim}70%$ when the reselected rhizosphere antagonists preparations were applied to the soil at $10^6$ propagules per gram. Among six antagonists, T. viride was the most promising biocontrol agents against R. solani isolates in soil. The suppressive effect was more evident in steam-sterilized soil than in non-sterilized field soil.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.189-196
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• 2016

Several microorganisms in particular Bacillus subtilis group have been isolated from diverse places such as soils and the gastrointestinal tract of ruminants etc., and used as biocontrol agent against various plant pathogens and utilized as plant growth promoting agents. Among them, Bacillus is well known as one of the most useful bacteria for biocontrol and plant growth promotion. Bacterium GH1-13 was isolated from a reclaimed paddy field in Wando Island and identified as Bacillus velezensis using phylogenetic analysis on the basis of 16S rRNA and gyrB gene. It was confirmed that GH1-13 produced indole acetic acid (IAA) associated with promoted growth of rice root. GH1-13 showed characteristics of antagonization against the main pathogen of rice as well as diverse pathogenic fungi. GH1-13 had biosynthetic genes, bacillomycin, bacilycin, fengycin, iturin, and surfactin which are considered to be associated closely with inhibition of growth of pathogenic fungi and bacteria. This study showed that GH1-13 could be used as a multifunctional agent for biocontrol and growth promotion of crop.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.78-84
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• 2011

Antagonistic rhizobacteria, more specifically fluorescent pseudomonads and certain species of Bacillus, are known as biocontrol agents of fungal root diseases of agronomic crops. In this study, 144 bacteria were isolated from cucumber rhizosphere and screened as potential biological control agents against Phytophthora drechsleri, the causal agent of cucumber root rot, in vitro condition. Non-volatile compounds of 23 isolates showed noticeable inhibition zone (> 30%) against P. drechsleri, whereas volatile compounds of 7 isolates could prevent more than 30% of the mycelial growth of the fungus. All promising isolates, except of Pseudomonas flourescens V69, promoted significantly plant growth under in vitro condition. P. flourescens CV69 and V11 exhibited the highest colonization on the root. Results of the greenhouse studies showed that a reduction in disease incidence by use of some strains, and particularly use of strains CV6 and V11 as a soil treatment, exhibited a reduction in disease incidence so that suppressed disease by 85.71 and 69.39% respectively. Pseudomonas flourescens CV6 significantly suppressed disease in comparison to Ridomil fungicide. The use of mixture bacterial strains in the soil inoculated by the fungus resulting in falling down the most of the plants which didn't show significant difference with infected control soils without bacteria.

• Mycobiology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.190-192
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• 2000

Antifungal bacteria for biological control of plant diseases or production of novel antibiotics to plant pathogens were isolated in 1997 from various soils of Ansung, Chunan, Koyang, and Paju in Korea. Sixty-four bacterial strains pre-screened from approximately 1,400 strains were tested on V-8 juice agar against eight plant pathogenic fungi using in vitro bioassay technique for inhibition of mycelial growth. Test pathogens were Alternaria mali, Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, C. orbiculare, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum, F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici, Magnaporthe grisea, Phytophthora capsici, and Rhizoctonia solani. A wide range of antifungal activity of bacterial strains was found against the pathogenic fungi, and strain RC-B77 showed the best antifungal activity. Correlation analysis between inhibition of each fungus and mean inhibition of all eight fungi by 64 bacterial strains revealed that C. gloeosporioides would be best appropriate for detecting bacterial strains producing antibiotics with potential as biocontrol agents for plant pathogens.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.83-88
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• 1995

Soybean has been cultivated in China for 5,000 years. The soybean cyst neamtode (SCN), Heterodra glycines, was recongnized in Northeastern China in 1899. Currently, it is known to occur in 12 provinces. The biology of SCN was investigated in several provinces. Six races of SCN were identified (race 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7). About f10,000 soybean germplasm lines were evaluated for their resistance to race 1, 3, 4 and 5 of SCN. At least two black-seeded cultivars are resistant to all four races. Several tolerant soybean cultivars with yellow seed coat were released and are in production. Additional resistant cultivars are being developed. Nematicides were not applied in production Potential biocontrol agents and related aspects are being investigated.