Omar Salvador Perniola 1,2; Silvia Elena Chorzempa2; Marco D’Amico3; Sebastián Staltari1; María del Carmen Molina1; Marta Mónica Astiz Gassó1
1Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Forestales. Instituto Fitotécnico de Santa Catalina; Argentina
2Universidad Nacional de Lomas de Zamora. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias; Argentina
3Ministerio de Desarrollo Agrario. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Estación Experimental Gorina; Argentina
Abstract
In recent decades, society increased awareness of agrochemicals harmful effects on health and environment has led to changes in some horticultural and floricultural farms in Buenos Aires Green Belt such as the incorporation of environmentally friendly pest control strategies, with a consequent reduction in the use of synthetic pesticides. In this context, biofumigation with Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) is presented as an effective biological tactic for soil pest control, which could be part of an agroecological pest management programme. There are records in Argentina of biofumigation practices using local resources (mainly crop residues of Brassicaceae horticultural species), but cultivar for biofumigation purposes were not developed. For this reason, a mass selection process was carried out at Instituto Fitotécnico de Santa Catalina, which culminated in obtaining the biofumigant cultivar of Indian mustard called SANTA CATALINA UNLP (SC). Several investigations carried out during the selection period showed that biofumigation with this variety is effective in suppressing some species of phytopathogenic fungi, reduce populations of phytophagous nematodes and inhibit some weeds emergence and growth. It was also found that biofumigation with SC does not affect the antagonistic fungus Trichoderma spp. and beneficial soil nematodes.
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