Activity and environmental properties of microbial pesticides for control of root pathogenic microfungi in sugar beet

In modem agriculture the application of soil bacteria for biological control of root pathogenic microfungi has attracted increasing attention. Basically this promising biotechnology 'involves coating of crop seeds with antagonistic bacteria, which subsequently develop into root-colonizing populations and protect the seedlings against fungal attack. In Danish agriculture, sugar beet is an important crop and strong efforts, on Danish as well as European scales, are presently being made to develop a biotechnology-based protection system of this crop against fungal diseases. In the present program, three research groups at KVL (Soil Microbiology), DTU (Molecular Microbial Ecology) and KU (Organic Chemistry) focus on the activity and effect of microbial pesticides in protection of sugar beet against fungal root diseases. The research program takes advantage of our experience in: 1. Rhizosphere microbiology, including associated aspects of root colonization, antibiotic production and bacterial as well as fungal stress responses. 2. Control of gene expression, bacterial motility, and intercellular communication in complex microbial communities and construction/application of reporter systems. 3. Structural analysis of bioactive metabolites and production of labeled compounds. The research program is thus based on the application of modern chemical and molecular biological techniques in combination with advanced microscopy to study biocontrol bacteria and their gene expression at the single cell level.