European soybean to benefit people and the environment.

Europe imports large amounts of soybean that are predominantly used for livestock feed, mainly sourced from Brazil, USA and Argentina. In addition, the demand for GM-free soybean for human consumption is project to increase. Soybean has higher protein quality and digestibility than other legumes, along with high concentrations of isoflavones, phytosterols and minerals that enhance the nutritional value as a human food ingredient.

Flemish soils contain rhizobia partners for Northwestern Europe-adapted soybean cultivars.

In Europe, soybean (Glycine max) used for food and feed has to be imported, causing negative socioeconomic and environmental impacts. To increase the local production, breeding generated varieties that grow in colder climates, but the yield using the commercial inoculants is not satisfactory in Belgium because of variable nodulation efficiencies. To look for indigenous nodulating strains possibly adapted to the local environment, we initiated a nodulation trap by growing early-maturing cultivars under natural and greenhouse conditions in 107 garden soils in Flanders.

Biological control of Rhizoctonia root rot on bean by phenazine- and cyclic lipopeptide-producing Pseudomonas CMR12a.

Pseudomonas CMR12a was previously selected as an efficient biocontrol strain producing phenazines and cyclic lipopeptides (CLPs). In this study, biocontrol capacity of Pseudomonas CMR12a against Rhizoctonia root rot of bean and the involvement of phenazines and CLPs in this ability were tested. Two different anastomosis groups (AGs) of Rhizoctonia solani, the intermediately aggressive AG 2-2 and the highly aggressive AG 4 HGI, were included in growth-chamber experiments with bean plants.

Interactions between cauliflower and Rhizoctonia anastomosis groups with different levels of aggressiveness.

Background: The soil borne fungus Rhizoctonia is one of the most important plant pathogenic fungi, with a wide host range and worldwide distribution. In cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis), several anastomosis groups (AGs) including both multinucleate R.

Detection of rDNA ITS polymorphism in Rhizoctonia solani AG 2-1 isolates.

The sequence variability of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer regions ITS1 and ITS2, including the 5.8S gene, was investigated for Rhizoctonia solani isolates of anastomosis group (AG) 2-1. During PCR RFLP analysis of eight isolates, the restriction patterns of four isolates showed an excess of bands after restriction with the enzymes AvaII and/or HincII, which suggested the presence of more than one ITS region.