Incorporation into the transplant soil plug of the plant protective agent Paenibacillus alvei strain K165 confers protection to melon against Fusarium wilt

Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. melonis (FOM) is a plant pathogen affecting melon production worldwide. An environmental friendly disease management strategy is the use of biocontrol agents (BCAs). Towards this direction, two BCA release strategies, seed coating and amendment of the transplant soil plug with the BCA strain Paenibacillus alvei K165 at various ratios, were evaluated against FOM in planta and in vitro. A reduction in Fusarium wilt symptom development was observed in melon plants, after mixing the transplant soil plug with K165 (10⁷ cfu g^?1 powder) at a ratio of 10 % (v/v). The monitoring of K165 rhizosphere population in the different treatments revealed a possible existence of a threshold population level that has to be attained before suppression of disease occurs. The data of the present study suggest that K165 plant protective activity against FOM can be possibly attributed to antibiosis and the triggering of Chit1 and Pal1 gene expression.