The report Compost Use for Pest and Disease Suppression in NSW is now available. This report provides a concise overview of the use of compost for pest and disease suppression in NSW and a review of research conducted on the use of compost for disease suppression, identifying specific pests and diseases, mainly soil-borne organisms, that have been suppressed by the use of compost. It is targeted towards the commercial and agricultural sector, as this sector displays significant potential to utilise such technology to improve their organics management practices.

Pests and diseases cause significant economic crop loss in agricultural production systems, and growers identify management of pests and diseases as one of the top farm management issues across NSW.

A significant amount of research has been conducted on compost related suppression of pests and diseases. This research has shown that composts can provide natural biological control of soil born diseases that infect the collar and roots of plants, as well as potential benefit in suppressing foliar diseases. However, not all composts are disease suppressive due to the variability in compost quality and limitations in knowledge of desirable compost characteristics and their assessment. These are the principal factors limiting the wider utilisation of composts for disease suppression purposes.

This report identifies 42 pests and 40 diseases causing significant economic damage to intensive horticultural crops each year in NSW. Review of research literature on the use of compost products for disease suppression conducted for this study identified that of this total, one pest and about 13 diseases have been shown to be capable of being suppressed using compost products. The majority of diseases suppressed with compost products involve soil born organisms that effect collar and roots; fewer diseases effecting plant foliage/fruit/flower show suppression. Soil-borne pathogenic fungi (such as Fusarium spp.; Phytophthora spp; Pythium spp; Rhizoctonia spp; Sclerotium; Verticillium) are reported as responsible for diseases effecting collar and roots, and pathogenic bacteria (such as Xanthomas; Pseudomonas) for diseases effecting plant foliage, fruit and stems.

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• Compost Use for Pest and Disease Suppression in NSW

   

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