At 11:35 AM 10/25/2002 -0500, you wrote:
Fellow plant lovers,
For the short time I have been involved with the aroid world I have heard a
loud and consistent outcry regarding the horrors of unwanted fungi growing
and doing their dirty deeds to the plants we love. As part of an ongoing
search for ways of controlling fungi I have found that there may be some
very interesting ways other than resorting to traditional chemical fungicide
controls. There may be an alternative to this course of action that are not
yet in common practice.
Bio-control, the notion of using one microorganism to control another is a
relatively new concept. Microbes are extremely adaptable organisms in their
ability to metabolize unwanted chemicals in our environment, produce
inhibitory by-products, or actually invade, and kill other organisms. These
attributes have been used successfully in bio-remediation of chemical spills
and control of unwanted agricultural pests. New approaches to the control
of unwanted organisms, whether they are bacteria, fungi, algae, nematodes,
or insects may be found in the natural microbial world itself. Let's use
nature to control nature, one microbe to control another. The mechanisms
may be simply one organism eating another, or may be a complex string of
events that results in the death of the unwanted organism. There are
products on the market that claim to do exactly this. The data supporting
those claims is often convincing.
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