Increased Tomato Yields by Heat Treatment for Controlling Ralstonia solanacearum in Soil

Abstract

Possibities of soil after heat treatment by incubation at high temperature were investigated for controlling Ralstonia solanacearum, the causal agent of bacterial wilt on tomato. A constant temperature of 45°C for 2 day or a minimum temperature of 60°C for 2 h was applied in soil, after which tomato seedlings were grown. The incidence of tomato drop was very low in the heated plots, but a 40-50% loss of tomato to the disease was observed in the control plots (no heat treatment). Reductions in biomass and in the number of tomato seedlings were observed in the non heated treatments, reduced the total bacterial population by 60-97%. The populations of native Ralstonia spp. were reduced from 2.4-7×10⁸ colony forming units (cfu)g^-1 to 0-115 cfu g^-1. Heat treatment reduced bacterial wilt incidence by 50-75%. This study presented the report on the efficiency of high temperature treatment on soil against tomato bacterial wilt pathogens.