Paenarthrobacter nitroguajacolicus can promote cucumber growth and control cucumber corynespora leaf spot

Highlights

● First report of bacteria Paenarthrobacter nitroguajacolicus for effective control of cucumber corynespora leaf spot and promotion of cucumber growth.

● P. nitroguajacolicus strain BJ-5 is well-adapted for biocontrol being tolerant of saline environments.

● P. nitroguajacolicus produces a variety of secondary metabolites that promote plant growth.

Abstract

Currently, the disease control in cucumber mainly depends on agrochemicals, which is not an environmentally benign strategy. Biocontrol bacteria not only resist plant pathogens but also promote plant growth, which is ecofriendly and sustainable option. A biocontrol bacterial strain BJ-5 was screened using Corynespora cassiicola as the target pathogen, and BJ-5 was determined to be Paenarthrobacter nitroguajacolicus by morphological and molecular methods. The effect of BJ-5 on C. cassiicola was studied, including the spore germination, cell membrane permeability and infected cucumbers. BJ-5 inhibited the germination of C. cassiicola spores in vitro and led to atrophy and deformation of the C. cassiicola budding tubes. BJ-5 caused the relative extracellular conductivity of C. cassiicola mycelia to increase compared with the control. Additionally, BJ-5 reduced the severity of cucumber corynespora leaf spot of cucumber infected with C. cassiicola. The inhibition efficacy of BJ-5 suspension as a foliar spray against cucumber corynespora leaf spot reached 63% inhibition, which is higher than a 5000-fold dilution of Luna-Son SC fungicide. In addition, BJ-5 was tested on the emergence of cucumber seedlings, recording the biomass and photosynthesis of cucumber during the growth period. BJ-5 at 1.5 × 10⁵ CFU·mL⁻¹ promoted the germination of cucumber seeds and increased biomass and photosynthesis at the adult plant stage. Also, the secondary metabolites of BJ-5 were determined. BJ-5 could produce chitinases, siderophore, cellulase, amylase and protease in the respective medium. Finally, adaptation assay of BJ-5 showed good salt tolerance and good adaptability in alkaline conditions, and that BJ-5 retains inhibition of fungi activity at higher temperatures. This is the first report of the biocontrol by P. nitroguajacolicus with antagonism to C. cassiicola and promote cucumber growth. This study indicates that P. nitroguajacolicus may serve as potential biocontrol agents against cucumber corynespora leaf spot fungus.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Adaptability / antagonistic bacterium / disease resistance / growth promotion / secondary metabolite

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Supplementary materials

The online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2024537 contains supplementary materials (Tables S1–S3).

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Shaanxi Province Key Research and Development Plan Project (2019ZDLNY03-07).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Min Li, Yahui Huang, Xiaomin Dong, Xu Zhang, and Qing Ma declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any study with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2024. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)