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Bacillus subtilis fungicides?

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Hey all,

I've come across a brand of fungicide recently that's supposed to be relatively safe for all sorts of things from veggies to ornamentals and fruits. The active ingredient is some strain of bacillus subtilis, which I've not seen or heard too much about. Says it even helps to control botyritis, which I found particularly encouraging. What I've read so far about this stuff sounds interesting, but I don't know of any specific mentions of it with regards to CPs.

Has anyone tried this stuff with either positive or negative results? ???
 
Just the two of us eh? I guess I'll have to experiment on some of the more expendable 'typicals' in my collection. ???


Thanks for providing your insight, I will look into the other products you mentioned.
 
All my experience in B. subtilis comes from genetic tinkering with them. Never heard anything about them being anti-fungal but I know they are probiotic so that probably goes hand in hand. B. subtilis does have a number of cool antimicrobials that it produces (I study one: Skf)

Gonna have to do some pubmed searching...
 
Bacillus subtilis has a plant growth promoting rhizobacterium shown to synthesize antifungal peptides. This ability has lead to the use of B. subtilis in biocontrol. B. subtilis has been shown to increase crop yields, although it has not been shown whether this is because it enhances plant growth, or inhibits disease growth.

From MicrobeWiki
 
Well MicrobeWiki could use a little help. Bacillus is not a rhizobacterium nor does it harbor rhizobacterium. It is a soil-dwelling endospore-forming bacterium and does not have an obligate association with plants.

Did a quick search on PubMed and got a number of hits.

The principle one was this:

Leifert C, Li H, Chidburee S, Hampson S, Workman S, Sigee D, Epton HA, Harbour A.
Department of Plant and Soil Science, University of Aberdeen, UK.

Bacillus subtilis CL27 and B. pumilus CL45 showed similar activity against Botrytis cinerea in in vitro plate assays. In a seedling bioassay, however, B. subtilis CL27 had activity similar to a commercial fungicide while B. pumilus CL45 failed completely to prevent seedling damping-off caused by Bot. cinerea. Antibiotic production by the two Bacillus strains was found to depend on the growth substrate and highest antibiotic production was found on media based on homogenized cabbage tissue. Antibiotic activity was found to depend on the pH and nutrient concentration in the assay medium. Antifungal antibiotics produced by B. subtilis CL27 and B. pumilus CL45 in different fermentation media were separated by thin layer chromatography. As suspected from the activity spectrum, three antibiotics (one with activity against Alternaria brassicicola, one with activity against Botrytis cinerea and one with activity against both fungi) could be detected in the fermentation broth of CL27, but only one in the fermentation broth of CL45. The two antibiotics produced by strain CL27 with activity against A. brassicicola were identified as peptides since their bands on the TLC plates developed a green to blue/green colour after treatment with 4,4'-tetramethyldiamino-diphenylmethane (TDM) reagent. The third antibiotics produced by strain CL27 and antibiotic produced by CL45 had a similar Rf-value and appeared not to be peptides based on the reaction with TDM. However, they showed a slightly different activity spectrum when tested against a range of different fungi. Antibiotic production was clearly indicated as the mode of action of in vivo biocontrol by strain CL27 against damping off caused by Bot. cinerea of Astilbe micro-plants, because a u.v.-induced antibiotic negative mutant strain CL27b showed no activity in seedling bioassays in vivo. Also the mutant strain CL27a which produced the two peptide antibiotics but had lost the ability to produce the non-peptide antibiotic, showed greatly reduced in vivo activity.

Also found references to other fungicides that it produses like fengycin and iturin A.

Might have to take one of the prototroph strains home and innoculate my collection...
 
you're way outta my league pyro :) :hail:

Ive been told that while it is effective against botrytis, it doesnt harm or antagonize (sp?) the trichoderma... does that sound right to you?


Cheers'
AV

have you read the story behind it? (WWII Germany... pretty interesting if it's accurate)

edit: (I've noticed It does seem to cause any decaying plant material to take on an odd black color)
 
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It just happens to be the organism I study so it is real familiar to me :) I am sure there are pleanty of things you have a greater knowlegde of than I do :)

It does seem that the antifungals are pretty specific, they seem to go after detrimental fungi in any case. I have not gone looking for details though and it is always possible that the antifungals produced are pretty generic. Without any actual data I would tentatively suspect that the activity is specific but without actually plating out a competative assy it would remain nothing more than a guess. And I don't have any trichoderma here to test with (nor do I really have the freedom to go making unrelated assays...)

I have not read the particular story about this but would be interested if you have the link.

The only old school study I really know of is the one with B. subtilis in light bulbs in the subway tunnles. Anti-science jerks like to cite that one as proof that scientists are unethical and without morals. Since the purpose of that study was to test distribution of anthrax through the tunnles in the even of a bioattack I would say that using the probiotic subtilis instead of pathogenic anthrasis was the epitome of ethical and moral.
 
Ive got 3 spp. of trich if you need a little sample to play with ;)

here ya go, ive read this from more then one source, but dont know how accurate the story is or if it is in fact true:

Dr. Rothschild backed up his point by telling us the story of the discovery of the Bacillus subtilis, a bacterial microorganism that is commonly found in the environment rather than in humans, yet is well known by modern science to be very friendly to the human system. It can promote dramatic healing benefits in humans, even though it isn't one of the native microbes that normally inhabit the human body. According to Dr. Rothschild, the story of Bacillus subtilis goes like this:

The bacillus subtilis was discovered by the Nazi German medical corps in 1941, toward the end of their African campaign. At the time, the German military victory was at its height. But the German high command became genuinely alarmed when hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers in North Africa suddenly began dying every week. Oddly, the Nazi soldiers weren't dying because of British General Montgomery's retaliatory bombs and shrapnel, but instead, they were dying of uncontrollable dysentery.

Of course, the Germans were aware that dysentery was caused by pathogenic (i.e. disease-causing) bacteria from local food and water sources. But in those days, there were no antibiotics. Sulfur was already on the market, but only in a topical non-ingestible form. So with no medication available with which to stop the plague of dysentery, the Nazis quickly began looking for other means to help their dying soldiers.

The German high command immediately sent out a contingent of scientists, physicians, chemists, biochemists, bacteriologists and other experts to help solve the problem. With typical German circumspection, these top experts reasoned that there must be a natural way to counteract the deadly bacteria causing the dysentery because, if there wasn't, the millions of Arabs living in the region would have been dead long ago.

Therefore, the Germans' first step was to closely scrutinize the native Arabs, and see whether or not they were affected by dysentery. What they discovered was that the Arabs also caught dysentery, but at the first sign of diarrhea [the #1 symptom of dysentery --- Ed.] the Arabs would do something quite incredible: They would immediately begin following around a horse or camel until it would drop its dung. Then, the affected Arab would pick up the warm dung droppings, and quickly gulp them down! This strange procedure effectively eliminated the dysentery almost overnight.

Once the good hygienic Germans finally recovered from the shock of seeing the Arab natives gulping down warm camel dung, they quickly realized that there must be something in the dung that somehow counteracted the harmful bacteria that caused the dysentery. They questioned the Arabs, who told them that they had no idea why it worked, but that their fathers had always done so, as had their forefathers, and it had always worked. The only caveat was that the camel or horse dung had to be ingested while still warm and fresh, because it had no effect on the dysentery if ingested cold.

So the Nazis began carefully examining fresh camel and horse dung. What they discovered was that it was teeming with a powerful bacterial microorganism which later came to be called Bacillus subtilis. This bacteria, it turned out, is so strong that it practically cannibalizes all harmful microorganisms in the human body --- particularly pathogenic bacteria like the virulent strain which was causing dysentery in the German troops.

Within a very short time, the Nazis began producing hundreds and thousands of gallons of active Bacillus subtilis cultures for their troops to ingest. And bingo, no more dysentery! Soon afterwards, the Germans even discovered the process by which the Bacillus subtilis cultures could be dried and placed into easily ingestible capsules. From that time forward, the resourceful Germans had no more problems with losing troops from dysentery.




Av

hehehe using the "A" (Anthr....) word makes me nervous... (looks over shoulder for men in black) LOL
 
  • #10
Very interesting story. Not sure of the validity though, I'll run it past my boss and see if he has heard it and what he has to say.

The activity described sounds a lot more like phage, which are virus specific to bacteria. The phage would infect and, in the process of replicating, destroy the pathogenic bacterial.

Of course I could be wrong anf this could be accurate. I do know that B. subtilis has a whole catalouge of anti-microbials so I would not be terribly suprised if this was the case.

More as I learn it
 
  • #11
well I always thought it sounded like the lead-in to an infomercial but I dunno, my field is electro-mechanical but I like to read. Early on I had a real hard time getting anything close to consistant results with my cephs, so I started researching what I could about soil borne fungi, beneficial organisms etc. Common sense told me I was missing a part of the puzzle... since then I have used a Bacillius and Trichoderma drench monthy and have become a believer in them.

Please add to this post as you find out anything, I'm eager to learn :)

Av
 
  • #12
Seems odd since Rommel, the commander of the Afrika Korps was on medical leave because of dysentery at several crucial moments during the African campaign. You'd think the most famous German figure in the whole war in North Africa would be given this miracle cure.
 
  • #13
Oh my at one time I knew all those specifics but not anymore... I do remember he was away there at the last, but I was thinking it was because of a family crisis or taking a holiday

LOL, great point "Not"... that will bug me till I can look it up when I get home tonight

I tell ya what, some of the most diverse people in this group LOL

Av

edit: On 9 March 1943 he handed over command of Armeegruppe Afrika to General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim and left Africa, because of health reasons, never to return.
 
  • #14
Okay, I ran the story past my boss who has been in the B. subtilis field since forever. He had never heard this story. He does not totally discount it but like me feels that it sounds more like phage activity. His opinion is that it sounds like a devious trick used by the Arabs to get the Germans to eat sh%*.

That said, there are a number of labs in Europe that study the probiotic nature of subtilis and subtilis is one of the components of a cocktail that is used in Viet Nam to treat dysentary. So whether the story itself is accurate the "moral", as it were, is true (or at least accepted.) I still don;t know that I would go licking any of my plates whenever I get sick though...
 
  • #15
Okay, I ran the story past my boss who has been in the B. subtilis field since forever. He had never heard this story. He does not totally discount it but like me feels that it sounds more like phage activity. His opinion is that it sounds like a devious trick used by the Arabs to get the Germans to eat sh%*.

Eine kleines Kamelsche*ss für Herr Generalfeldmarschall! :-))
 
  • #16
ok ok ok, who is our resident elderly and native tribal north African :p

Av

man has this thread ever gone on a tangent LOL, me sowwy... put it on your plants but just dont eat it without consulting a tribal elder first :)
 
  • #17
Don't be sorry, tangents can be fun and it has been a learning experience all around.
 
  • #18
yeah I know... and omg Im the worst :)
 
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