Horticulture - Reducing the risk of oomycete pathogens, thrips and weevils for sustainable, coconut coir based soft fruit production

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Coconut coir is the most widely used substrates strawberry and raspberry production. Its biological, chemical and physical properties enable high yield and consistent crop production with low pest and disease pressure. Root rot causing oomycete pathogens, thrips and weevils however can threaten coir based production causing over 30% decline in yields. Root rot pathogens can spread to coir based production with infected plant material and irrigation water, while incest pest colonise coir from the neighbouring fields. The bans of effective chemical control products and consumer pressure for reduction of pesticide use are driving the need for more sustainable pest and pathogen control such as the use of biocontrol fungi and bacteria. Oomycete pathogens can persist as spores in the coir across several seasons and can cause large yield loss if coir is reused over several cropping seasons. Pest such as western flower thrip and vine weevils can also infest spent media and build up populations with if substrate is reused over several seasons. The risk of pests and diseases devastating production is the reason why coir substrate is used for a single cropping season. This results in over 600,000 m3 of spent coir substrate discarded every year in UK strawberry production alone. The single use of coir substrate is expensive, labour intense, and environmentally unsustainable. In this project, researchers from NIAB East Malling will collaborate with coir recycling company Overland Ltd. with the aim 1) to unlock the potential of coir recycling to produce sustainable recycled alternative to virgin coir material and 2) to investigate if biocontrol organisms can help to further reduce oomycete root rot pathogens in virgin and recycled media. We will assess to what extent the recycling and sterilising methodology developed by Overland can reduce pest and disease risk. We will use a wide range of methods, from field scale experimental strawberry bioassays and biocontrol amendments to state-of-the-art microbiome analysis to ascertain the risk of known and new pathogen complexes and efficacy of biocontrol. The outcomes will enable growers to better understand and more sustainably manage the risk of pests and disease in soft fruit production.