Fungi inhibiting Growth of the Crown-rot Disease Fungus Sclerotium delphinii Welch

Abstract

Sclerotium delphinii Welch is recognized as a highly destructive pathogen of a large number of vegetables and ornamental plants. Efforts during the past twenty-five years to develop practical control of this fungus have met with failure. Some investigators reported a slight benefit with chemicals, but the control achieved was far from satisfactory. Chemical tests by Davey and Leach in 1941¹, on a closely related organism, Sclerotium rolfsii, revealed that, of the seventeen water-soluble chemicals tested, only formalin at dilutions of 1 : 100 and applied at 3 gallons per sq. ft. of soil surface was effective. More recently, chemicals were also tried by Thomas Laskaris, while working on diseases of delphinium at the New York Botanical Garden. Because these and other workers were unsuccessful in finding a chemical control for this highly destructive fungus, an attempt has therefore been made, at the suggestion of Dr. P. P. Pirone, plant pathologist of the New York Botanical Garden, to achieve control by biological methods.