Development of Biofungicide Using Bacillus sp. KBC1004 for the Control of Anthracnose of Red Pepper

To develop an effective biopesticide to control pepper anthracnose disease, an isolate which showed strong inhibitory effect on the mycelial growth and conidial germination of Colletotrichum acutatum was selected among the antagonistic bacterial isolates collected from pepper grown soil. The bacterial isolate was identified as Bacillus sp. KBC1004 using 16S rRNA sequence analysis. The liquid culture of KBC1004 was freeze-dried and formulated as a wettable powder(WP). The wettable powder form of KBC1004 required at least 24 hours to activate and to inhibit the conidial germination of C. acutatum. In vitro bioassay using the detached green pepper fruits, biocontrol activity of the WP was not recognizable in simultaneous inoculation, but significant disease suppression was observed pre-treatment (24 hr) of the WP before pathogen inoculation. In field experiment, 4 times foliar applications of the 1/500 diluted wettable powder from the end of June showed great control efficacy similar to that of the chemical fungicide application. These results suggest that the formulated WP product could be an alternative mean to control of pepper anthracnose disease in environmentally friendly farming practices