Alternative Seed Treatment Methods for Control of Septoria petroselini on Parsley Seed

Septoria leaf blight caused by the fungus Septoria petroselini is one of the major and important diseases in parsley occurring in many countries. The use of high quality seeds is one of the conditions for an efficient crop production. As the fungus is a seedborne, use of clean and certified seeds is important for disease control especially for use in organic farming. Resistance inducers, commercially formulated and non-formulated selected bacterial strains were applied as seed treatments on naturally infested seeds and were tested under controlled and field conditions. Most of these treatments had positive effect on seed germination. Among the seven resistance inducers tested in greenhouse experiments, Jasmonic acid had the best result and increased seed germination by 25.6%. All the three commercial products and the experimental strain Bacillus subtilis K3 increased the number of plants, the yield and decreased the disease incident significantly in field experiments. The experimental bacteria reduced Septoria infection by 70% and increased the yield by 24%. Results indicate that several options for non-chemical control of this pathogen exist and can be recommended for better quality and quantity of the parsley crop production.