Effect of olive mill wastewater on growth and bulb production of tulip plants infected by bulb diseases

The effect of olive mill wastewater (OMW) on growth of tulip plants infected by common diseases as well as on their new bulbs production is analyzed in this work. Filtered and sterilized OMW was tested as growth inhibitor of Botrytis tulipae, Fusarium oxysporum, Aspergillus niger and Penicillium spp. mycelium. The effect of filtered OMW on uninfected tulip bulbs was also tested as well as on the growth of bulbs infected with the fungus B. tulipae and A. niger in vivo. The mycelium length, severity of scab-like lesions, plant height (PH), fresh mass (FM) and dry mass (DM) of plants and production of new bulbs were recorded. Only the filtered OMW inhibited the in vitro mycelium growth of all tested fungi. However filtered OMW caused infections when it sprayed on uninfected bulbs, malformations on 30% of the plants grown from these bulbs and decrease PH, FM and DM as well as new bulbs production at 75%, 72.4%, 79.1% and 50% respectively. The treatment of B. tulipae infected bulbs with filtered OMW reduced further the PH, FM, DM and the production of new bulbs in 92.1%, 81.4%, 78.7% and 97% respectively. In contrast the treatment of infected bulbs by B. tulipae + A. niger with filtered OMW did not affect PH, FM and the number of new bulbs produced and significantly improved plants DM and the mass of new bulbs