The effects of formalin, nabam, irrigation and nitrogen on Heterodera avenae Woll., Ophiobolus graminis Sacc. and the growth of spring wheat

In 1964, nabam (sodium ethylene bisdithiocarbamate), water and three amounts of nitrogen fertilizer were applied to spring wheat on soil treated and untreated with formalin. The experiment lasted for 3 years during which there were eight different formalin, no–formalin sequences. The nabam and irrigation treatments were discontinued when it was found they did not affect the principal pathogens present, the cereal cyst nematode Heterodera avenae and the take–all fungus Ophiobolus graminis. Formalin increased grain and straw yields in the year in which it was applied but led to increased H. avenae populations which adversely affected the succeeding crop. Formalin controlled O. graminis in the year it was applied except on land treated for the first time in 1966. H. avenae seemed to be the main check to growth until about June, and O. graminis later. At the end of the experiment, total grain yields and nematode soil populations were greatest in the plots treated with formalin each year and least in those never treated with formalin. Yield loss from either O. graminis or H. avenae alone could not be assessed because formalin usually controlled both during the season in which it was applied and both were present in untreated plots. However, in 1965, some comparisons of the effects of each pathogen were possible when one occurred in the presence of differing amounts of the other. A doubling of total grain yield over 3 years was accompanied by an eightfold increase in H. avenae in sequences of continuous formalin or formalin 1964 and 1965, whereas yield increases caused by extra nitrogen were not matched by such a big increase in H. avenae. This suggests that formalin might be affecting H. avenae through factors other than increased plant size and vigour, which in themselves would tend to encourage larger nematode populations. In the absence of formalin, H. avenae soil populations either fell or failed to increase.