Abstract
Soilborne pests and pathogens present major challenges for soil-based production systems, causing annual crop losses of billions of dollars globally. Over the last century, the management of soilborne pests and pathogens has been accomplished primarily using pre-planting chemical soil fumigants, with little attention paid to soil health and environmental sustainability. Providing a brief historical perspective on soil disinfestation and its evolution, in this work we discuss how the 2005 phase-out of methyl bromide (MeBr, CH3Br), the most popular broad-spectrum soil fumigant used worldwide for over five decades, and the consequent search for more sustainable soil disinfestation practices led to the advancement of new organic amendment-based soil management tactics and to a better understanding of the role soil health plays in the suppression of soilborne pests and pathogens and crop performance. We discuss how new knowledge and the adoption of advanced organic amendment-based soil management strategies like anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD) are establishing a paradigm shift, reducing the dependence on toxic chemicals for soil disinfestation, and realigning the focus on the importance of nourishing soil microbes to generate pest and pathogen suppressive soils. Finally, we discuss current research and extension efforts and the main challenges and opportunities associated with the adoption of organic amendment-based soil management tactics at a commercial scale.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-8 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Acta Horticulturae |
Volume | 1 |
Issue number | 1410 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2024 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Horticulture