Management of Nematodes Associated With Tobacco and Sweet Potato Using Non-fumigant Approach

Tobacco and sweet potato are attacked by several species of plant-parasitic nematodes leading to substantial yield losses. Because host-plant resistance is lacking in commercial cultivars and other common methods of nematode management either have low efficacy or pose adverse effects to the environment, controlled environment studies were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of non-fumigant chemical and biological nematicides against Meloidogyne enterolobii on tobacco and Rotylenchulus reniformis on sweet potato. Results suggest that fluensulfone was the most effective in suppressing M. enterolobii in tobacco, followed by oxamyl and fluopyram. The biological Burkholderia derived biological nematicide did not suppress the nematode population. For the experiments involving sweet potato, initial experiments were carried out to screen a core set of 24 sweet potato plant introductions (PI) including a susceptible commercial cultivar Beauregard against R. reniformis. The top three PI with superior performance against R. reniformis were further evaluated to determine if application of non-fumigant chemical nematicides result in better nematode suppression. Oxamyl was the most effective in suppressing R. reniformis reproduction followed by fluopyram, and fluensulfone. Results from the current study suggest the non-fumigant chemical nematicides are promising tools to managing nematodes associated with tobacco and soybean