SCN control using Fungi

Waseca county in Minnesota, is one of the earliest places in Minnesota where SCN was detected. Minnesota is often dubbed Minnesoyta, for it is the third largest soybean producer in the United States. Naturally, SCN is of great concern to the state and the University. Therefore, long-term experiments were set up at the University of Minnesota's Southern Research and Outreach Center (SROC) to study all aspects of soybean production, including SCN, in the late 80s. My work was based on a set of long-term soy-corn rotation plots that were not ever treated with any nematicide. These rotation plots factored in different soy-corn rotation modules. There were plots that went from corn to soybeans every year, those that went every five years and those that were never rotated. When soybeans are available every single year, there is food for the SCN and they will increase. Usually, rotating with corn reduces the SCN population as corn induces SCN to hatch, but not feed. Despite having soybeans planted in those non-rotated plots every year and no nematicides, SCN populations went down over a period of 30 years. Further investigations led us to believe that certain natural fungi accumulating in those fields were to be credited for such a reduction. For my thesis, I isolated SCN cysts and looked at the fungi that were inside those nematode cysts. After tracking and identifying them for 3 consecutive years, I screened for the ones that are antagonistic to nematodes. Then, I tested their potential to control nematodes in greenhouse assays.