Evaluating trichocompost for disease control and yield improvement in potatoes under tropical dryland conditions in South Central Timor, Indonesia
Article Sidebar
Abstract Views: 109
File Views: 104
Main Article Content
Abstract
Abstract. Simamora AV, Serangmo DYL, Londingkene JA, Nahas AE, Nenotek PS, Hahuly MV, Kasim M, Mahayasa INW, Gandut YRY, Widinugraheni S, Hosang EY. 2025. Evaluating trichocompost for disease control and yield improvement in potatoes under tropical dryland conditions in South Central Timor, Indonesia. Intl J Trop Drylands 9: 159-168. Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a key horticultural crop in Indonesia. In tropical dryland areas such as South-Central Timor, Indonesia, potato cultivation faces challenges including limited rainfall, poor soil fertility, and high disease pressure. Late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans remains one of the most destructive diseases. This study evaluated the biocontrol efficacy of Trichoderma harzianum formulated as trichocompost for disease suppression and yield improvement under dryland conditions. Unlike many previous studies that focused on in vitro or greenhouse testing, this research prioritized native Trichoderma isolates adapted to potato rhizosphere soil and validated their performance under harsh Entisol-based dryland field conditions. Five isolates were obtained from the rhizosphere of healthy potato plants and characterized morphologically. Their antagonistic activity against P. infestans was assessed using the dual culture method. All isolates inhibited P. infestans by more than 70%, with Trichoderma 04 showing the highest inhibition. Molecular identification confirmed this isolate as T. harzianum, which was selected for field evaluation in four treatments: control, trichocompost applied two weeks before planting (T1), at planting (T2), and two weeks after planting (T3). Data from the dual culture assay and field experiment were analyzed using ANOVA and followed by DMRT at p<0.05. Field trials showed that T1 extended the incubation period, substantially reduced disease severity, and increased both tuber number and tuber weight. These results demonstrate the dual function of T. harzianum trichocompost as a biocontrol agent and organic soil amendment, supporting sustainable potato production in tropical drylands.
Article Details
Issue
Section
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
References
Abdullah NS, Doni F, Mispan MS, Saiman MZ, Mohd-Yusuf Y, Oke MA, Suhaimi NSM. 2021. Harnessing Trichoderma in agriculture productivity and sustainability. Agronomy 11 (12): 2559. DOI: 10.3390/agronomy11122559.
Abewoy D. 2018. Review on potato late blight and potato tuber moth and their integrated pest management options in Ethiopia. Adv Crop Sci Technol 6 (1): 331. DOI: 10.4172/2329-8863.1000331.
Adnan M, Islam W, Shabbir A, Khan KA, Ghramh HA, Huang Z, Chen HYH, Lu G-D. 2019. Plant defense against fungal pathogens by antagonistic fungi, with Trichoderma in focus. Microb Pathog 129: 7-18. DOI: 10.1016/j.micpath.2019.01.042.
Ahmed M, Ahmad S, Hassan F, Qadir G, Hayat R, Shaheen FA, Raza MA. 2019. Innovative processes and technologies for nutrient recovery from wastes: A comprehensive review. Sustainability 11 (18): 4938. DOI: 10.3390/su11184938.
Asghar W, Kataoka R. 2021. Effect of co-application of Trichoderma spp. with organic composts on plant growth enhancement, soil enzymes, and fungal community in soil. Arch Microbiol 203 (7): 4281-4291. DOI: 10.1007/s00203-021-02413-4.
Ashar Z, Syam’un E, Ulfa F, Ifayanti. 2024. Effect of tithonia (Tithonia diversifolia) compost and Trichoderma sp. coating on potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) growth and yield. J Glob Innov Agric Sci 12 (4): 1093-1098. DOI: 10.22194/JGIAS/24.1500.
Bae SJ, Park YH, Bae HJ, Jeon J, Bae H. 2017. Molecular identification, enzyme assay, and metabolic profiling of Trichoderma spp. J Microbiol Biotechnol 27 (6): 1157-1162. DOI: 10.4014/jmb.1702.02063.
Bouziane Z, Dehimet L, Kacem Chaouch N. 2016. Inhibitory activity of Trichoderma viride against Phytophthora infestans that affects the Spunta potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) variety. Afr J Microbiol Res 10 (29): 1121-1127. DOI: 10.5897/ajmr2016.7980.
Central Statistics Agency. 2023. Monthly Rainfall by Regency/City (Millimeters), 2023. Badan Pusat Statistik, Kupang. [Indonesian]
Central Statistics Agency. 2024. Vegetable Crop Production by Regency/City (Quintals) 2021-2023. Badan Pusat Statistik, Kupang. [Indonesian]
Chen S, Daly P, Anjago WM, Wang R, Zhao Y, Wen X, Zhou D, Deng S, Lin X, Voglmeir J, Cai F, Shen Q, Druzhinina IS, Wei L. 2024. Genus-wide analysis of Trichoderma antagonism toward Pythium and Globisporangium plant pathogens and the contribution of cellulases to the antagonism. Appl Environ Microbiol 90: e00681-24. DOI: 10.1128/aem.00681-24.
Devaux A, Goffart J-P, Petsakos A, Kromann P, Gatto M, Okello J, Suarez V, Hareau G. 2020. Global food security, contributions from sustainable potato agri-food systems. In: Campos H, Ortiz O (eds). The Potato Crop: It's Agricultural, Nutritional, and Social Contribution to Humankind. Springer, Switzerland. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-28683-5_1.
Directorate General of Agricultural Infrastructure and Facilities. 2013. Standard Methods for Fungicide Efficacy Testing. Ministry of Agriculture, Jakarta. [Indonesian]
Elsherbiny AE, Amin BH, Aleem B, Kingsley KL, Bennett JW. 2020. Trichoderma volatile organic compounds as a biofumigation tool against late blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans in postharvest potato tubers. J Agric Food Chem 68 (31): 8163-8171. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.0c03150.
Erwin DC, Ribeiro OK. 1996. Phytophthora Diseases Worldwide. American Phytopathological Society Press, St. Paul, MN.
Flores PPE, Leon TB. 2024. Influence of beneficial microorganisms on the agronomic behavior of potato crop cv. “Bicentenaria”. Rev Fac Agron (LUZ) 40 (1): e244105. DOI: 10.47280/RevFacAgron(LUZ).v41.n1.05.
Gautam S, Pandey J, Scheuring DC, Koym JW, Vales MI. 2024. Genetic basis of potato tuber defects and identification of heat-tolerant clones. Plants 13 (5): 616. DOI: 10.3390/plants13050616.
Guo R, Li G, Zhang Z, Peng X. 2022. Structures and biological activities of secondary metabolites from Trichoderma harzianum. Mar Drugs 20 (11): 701. DOI: 10.3390/md20110701.
Guzmán-Guzmán P, Etesami H, Santoyo G. 2025. Trichoderma: A multifunctional agent in plant health and microbiome interactions. BMC Microbiol 25: 434. DOI: 10.1186/s12866-025-04158-2.
Hao J, Ashley K. 2021. Irreplaceable role of amendment-based strategies to enhance soil health and disease suppression in potato production. Microrganisms 9 (8): 1660. DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms9081660.
Haque MdM, Ilias GNM, Molla AH. 2012. Impact of Trichoderma-enriched biofertilizer on growth and yield of mustard (Brassica rapa L.) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicon Mill.). Agriculturists 10 (2): 109-119. DOI: 10.3329/agric.v10i2.13148.
Hashemi M, Tablet D, Sandroni M, Benavent-Celma C, Seematti J, Andersen CB, Grenville-Briggs J. 2022. The hunt for sustainable biocontrol of oomycete plant pathogens: A case study of Phytophthora infestans. Fungal Biol Rev 40: 53-69. DOI: 10.1016/j.fbr.2021.11.003.
Islam MH, Masud, MM, Jannat M, Hossain MI, Islam S, Alam MZ, Serneels FJB, Islam MR. 2022. Potentiality of formulated bioagents from lab to field: A sustainable alternative for minimizing the use of chemical fungicides in controlling potato late blight. Sustainability 14 (8): 4383. DOI: 10.3390/su14084383.
Islam SI, Billah ATMM, Hasan AK, Karim R, Khomphet T. 2023. Evaluating the impact of Trichoderma biofertilizer and planting dates on mustard yield performance using InfoCrop growth model. PloS One 18 (5): e0285482. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285482.
Kai K, Mine K, Akiyama K, Ohki S, Hayashi H. 2018. Anti-plant viral activity of peptaibols, trichorzins HA II, HA V, and HA VI, isolated from Trichoderma harzianum HK-61. J Pestic Sci 43 (4): 283-286. DOI: 10.1584/jpestics. D18-039.
Khatun H, Joya NS, Hoque AKMA, Monjil MS. 2021. Evaluation of Trichoderma harzianum in controlling late blight of potato. Sustain Food Agric 2 (2): 92-98. DOI: 10.26480/sfna.02.2021.92.98.
La Spada F, Stracquadanio C, Riolo M, Pane A, Caccicola SA. 2020. Trichoderma counteracts the challenge of Phytophthora nicotianae infections on tomato by modulating plant defense mechanisms and the expression of crinkler, necrosis-inducing Phytophthora protein 1, and cellulose-binding elicitor lectin pathogenic effectors. Front Plant Sci 11: 583539. DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2020.583539.
Lamichhane S, Neupane S, Timsina S, Chapagain B, Paudel PP, Rimal A. 2024. Potato late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans; An overview on pathology, integrated disease management approaches, and forecasting models. Plant Physiol Soil Chem 4 (2): 105-118. DOI: 10.26480/ppsc.02.2024.105.118.
Lemoine F, Correia D, Lefort V, Doppelt-Azeroual O, Mareuil F, Cohen-Boulakia S, Gascuel O. 2019. NGPhylogeny.fr: New generation phylogenetic services for non-specialists. Nucleic Acids Res 47 (W1): W260-W265. DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkz303.
Liu HF, Xue XJ, Yu Y, Xu MM, Lu CC, Meng XL, Zhang BG, Ding XH, Chu ZH. 2020. Copper ions suppress abscisic acid biosynthesis to enhance defence against Phytophthora infestans in potato. Mol Plant Pathol 21 (5): 636-651. DOI: 10.1111/mpp.12919.
Mazen MM. 2021. Combined effects of compost and Trichoderma spp. on reducing damping-off and root rot diseases of lentil plants. Egypt J Phytopathol 49 (2): 29-40. DOI: 10.21608/ejp.2021.80911.1037.
Mitiku M, Eshete Y. 2017. Management of potato late blight through host plant resistance and fungicide application in South Omo zone, SSNNPR, Ethiopia. Intl J Res Granthaalayah 5 (5): 342-348. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.802344.
Moata MRS, Takalapeta AM. 2021. Agroforestry as a sustainable agroecosystem in a terrestrial semi-arid region, Indonesia: Evidence from soil organic carbon. Intl J Trop Drylands 5 (1): 1-4. DOI: 10.13057/tropdrylands/t050101.
Mollah Md MI, Hassan N. 2023. Efficacy of Trichoderma harzianum, as a biological fungicide against fungal diseases of potato, late blight and early blight. J Nat Pestic Res 5: 100047. DOI: 10.1016/j.napere.2023.100047.
Mukhopadhyay R, Kumar D. 2020. Trichoderma: A beneficial antifungal agent and insights into its mechanism of biocontrol potential. Egypt J Biol Pest Control 30: 133. DOI: 10.1186/s41938-020-00333-x.
Naher L, Yusuf UK, Habib SH, Huynh KY, Siddiquee S. 2018. Mycoparasitism activity of Trichoderma harzianum associated with chitinase expression against Ganoderma boninense. Pak J Bot 50 (3): 1241-1245.
Napolitano A, Senatore M, Coluccia S, Palomba F, Castaldo M, Spasiano T, Avino AG, Vitale A, Bonfante A, Sacco A, Ruocco M. 2024. Development and evaluation of a Trichoderma-based bioformulation for enhancing sustainable potato cultivation. Horticulturae 10 (7): 664. DOI: 10.3390/horticulturae10070664.
Pazderu K, Hamouz K. 2017. Yield and resistance of potato cultivars with colour flesh to potato late blight. Plant Soil Environ 63 (7): 328-333. DOI: 10.17221/371/2017-PSE.
Peña H, Diánez F, Ramírez B, Sulbarán J, Arias K, Huertas V, Santos M. 2025. Compost and vermicompost as substrates enriched with Trichoderma asperellum for the production of basic potato seed in the Venezuelan Andes. Horticulturae 11 (2): 124 DOI: 10.3390/horticulturae11020124.
Purwantisari S, Sitepu H, Rukmi I, Lunggani AT, Budiharjo K. 2021. Indigenous Trichoderma harzianum as biocontrol toward blight late disease and biomudulator in potato plant productivity. Biosantifika 13 (1): 26-33. DOI: 10.15294/biosaintifika.v13i1.26706.
Rahman R, Bhuiyan MdKA, Khan MdAA, Hossain MA, Rubayet MdT. 2024. Trichoderma-fortified compost in controlling diseases and increasing yield of tomato. Intl J Environ Agric Biotechnol 9 (1): 165-174. DOI: 10.22161/ijeab.91.17.
Reghmit A. 2023. Phytohormones and Biomolecules Produced by Trichoderma strains as Eco-Friendly Alternative for Stimulation of Plant Growth. IntechOpen, London. DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.1002017.
Riptanti EW, Masyhuri, Irham, Suryantini A. 2022. The sustainability model of dryland farming in food-insecure regions: Structural equation model (SEM) approach. Intl J Sustain Dev Plan 17 (7): 2033-2043. DOI: 10.18280/ijsdp.170704.
Rokaya N, Paneru A, Timila RD, Dhital SP, Shrestha RK, Bahadur KC G, Manandhar HK. 2023. Evaluation of native isolates of Trichoderma spp. for controlling potato late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans in Nepal. J Phytopathol 171 (11-12): 595-603. DOI: 10.1111/jph.13214.
SAS Institute Inc. 2021. SAS/STAT® 15.3 User’s Guide. NC Publisher, Cary.
Shahni YS, Banik S, Pongener N, Neog P, Sing AP. 2023. Effects of biocontrol agents on early blight disease of potato in field. J Mycopathol Res 61 (3): 375-380. DOI: 10.57023/JMycR.61.3.2023.375.
Stange P, Kersting J, Padmanaban PBS, Schnitzler J-P, Rosenkranz M, Karl T, Benz JP. 2024. The decision for or against mycoparasitic attack by Trichoderma spp. is taken already at a distance in a prey-specific manner and benefits plant-beneficial interactions. Fungal Biol Biotechnol 11 (2024): 14. DOI: 10.1186/s40694-024-00183-4.
Susanto D, Manikasari GP, Putri M. 2018. Guidebook for Trichoderma Fertilizer Production and Trichoderma Cultivation. Social Human Science (SHS) Unit, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), UNESCO Office Jakarta. [Indonesian]
Tyśkiewicz R, Nowak A, Ozimek E, Jaroszuk-Sciseł J. 2022. Trichoderma: The current status of its application in agriculture for the biocontrol of fungal phytopathogens and stimulation of plant growth. Intl J Mol Sci 23 (4): 2329. DOI: 10.3390/ijms23042329.
Wang Z, Li Y, Zhuang L, Yu Y, Liu J, Zhang L, Gao Z, Wu Y, Gao W, Chun-Ding G, Wang Q. 2019. A rhizosphere-derived consortium of Bacillus subtilis and Trichoderma harzianum suppresses common scab of potato and increases yield. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 17: 645-653. DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2019.05.003.
Watanabe T. 2010. Pictorial atlas of soil and seed fungi. Morphologies and cultured fungi and key to species. 3rd ed. CRC Press, Boca Raton.
Wei X, Xie B, Wan C, Song R, Zhong W, Xin S, Song K. 2024. Enhancing soil health and plant growth through microbial fertilizers: Mechanisms, benefits, and sustainable agricultural practices. Agronomy 14 (3): 609. DOI: 10.3390/agronomy14030609.
Zhu L, Zhao X, Wang C, Wang J, Wang P, Tian C. 2022. Trichoderma affects plant growth and soil ecological environment: A mini-review. Zemdirbyste-Agriculture 109 (4): 341-348. DOI: 10.13080/z-a.2022.109.044.