Protecting turfgrass from fungal foes

As any plant lover knows, fungal infections can be a harbinger of doom for vegetation.

One day your cherry tomatoes are going gangbusters in the garden and, seemingly overnight, sunken brown spots appear on the plant's leaves, withering the foliage and the fruit ripening on its vines. Thanks, tomato blight fungus.

In blade grasses, such as turfgrass found on golf courses, athletic fields and lawns, dollar spot disease presents a similar challenge. The fungal disease is characterized by the appearance of circular spots of dead turf about the size of a silver dollar, hence the name dollar spot. It is a costly problem that can run upwards of $35,000 per year to manage at an average U.S. golf course. Multiplied across an approximately $40 billion turfgrass industry, mitigation measures are much needed. Therapeutic treatments made from biological materials, such as bacteria or microbes, are a promising solution for such situations.

Take UD1022 - a unique, University of Delaware-developed beneficial bacterium proven to boost plant defenses. Discovered by UD plant biologist Harsh Bais and colleagues, this novel strain of Bacillus subtilis helps a variety of plants resist soil-borne diseases, retain moisture and develop stronger root-to-shoot growth, among other benefits.

In previous work, Bais and colleagues showed in lab studies that UD1022 was effective in controlling the growth of dollar spot fungus, Clarireedia jacksonii, found on turfgrass.