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Keeping Chitwoodi manageable
Chitwoodi is advancing, was reported in the trade journals this winter. The number of fields with seed potatoes that are required to be examined for the presence of Meloidogyne chitwoodi and M. fallax has doubled in 4 years.
These maize root knot nematodes mainly cause yield loss and loss of quality in potatoes, carrots, sugar beets and bulbous crops. M. chitwoodi has a quarantine status: propagation material must be free of this nematode. The financial impact of an infection can therefore be enormous. Peter Berghuis, arable farmer and chairman of the LTO working group on seed potatoes, is committed to controlling chitwoodi.
Not under control yet
Berhuis: "Chitwoodi is a very serious matter. The increase in the number of infections is a worrying development for the seed potato sector. We are getting more circles, so we don't have it under control yet. Eradication of chitwoodi will not work either, but keeping it manageable will be. "
"You can control the problem with the right cropping plan adjustments. So by not growing crops that propagate chitwoodi prior to potato cultivation. And now that plenty of green manures are grown on companies, these also play a major role in controlling chitwoodi," says Berghuis.
"In our cropping plan (seed and ware potatoes, sugar beet, onions and grain), we invariably sow resistant fodder radish† With this we keep any existing maize root knot nematodes under control and the soil healthy so that we can continue to grow high-quality seed potatoes."
Doublet fodder radish fights chitwoodi
The multi-resistant fodder radish 'LG Doublet' is therefore the recommended green manure in crop plans with (seed) potatoes and sugar beets. Doublet combines BCA-1 (more than 90% reduction in beet cysts) with a chitwoodi and hapla resistance. Successful cultivation of Doubet can reduce the chitwoodi population by more than 99%.
Read more about Doublet fodder radish here.
