Antifungal composition

Treatment of Tulip Bulbs

[0032]In this example tulip bulbs of the variety Prominence were treated with a 1:1 mixture of spores of the pathogenic moulds Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. tulipae CBS116591 and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. tulipae Tu467 by submersing the bulbs for 30 minutes in a suspension containing 50.000-100.000 spores per ml. The mould spores were obtained using well-known methods. It should be noticed that in this challenge test the effect of the compositions was tested under very severe circumstances, because a very high number of mould spores was used. In real practise, the disease pressure will be less severe.

[0033]After the inoculation with mould spores the bulbs were dried following well-known methods. 40-60 minutes after drying the bulbs were treated with the different compositions described in Table 1. The compositions were prepared according to the instructions described on the label. All compositions contained 0.1% (v / v) of the sticking agent Prolong® (Holland Fyto,...

Treatment of Tulip Bulbs

[0036]This example describes the results of an experiment performed as described in Example 1. Just as in the experiment performed in Example 1, the pH of all solutions was adjusted to 5.7 with KOH or K2CO3which results in a mixture of two phosphites, KH2PO3 and K2HPO3.

[0037]The results obtained with a composition comprising 25% of a standard cocktail which is generally applied in practice are included. This standard cocktail contains the commercial products 0.5% (v / v) Captan (546 gram active ingredient per liter), 0.3% (v / v) Prochloraz (450 g / l) and 1% (v / v) Topsin M (500 g / l). The number of infected bulbs was scored and grouped using the well-known statistical method ANOVA (LSD at P=5% was 6.50).

[0038]Table 2 shows that the composition of this invention is ranked in the same group as the combination of natamycin and standard cocktail, meaning that the environmental friendly composition of natamycin and potassium phosphite could replace a combination of nata...

Treatment of Tulip Bulbs

[0039]In this experiment tulip bulbs of the variety Prominence were infected just after harvesting with a spore suspension of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. tulipae CBS 116593 and treated with the antifungal compositions presented in Table 3. This time, the bulbs were not planted but stored. In this experiment the efficacy of the antifungal composition during the storage of the bulbs was studied.

[0040]After harvesting, the outer dry skin of the bulbs was removed and the bulbs were disinfected by applying a treatment with 4% (v / v) Glorix® for 5 minutes. The bulbs were dried and a lesion of a few millimeters was made in the surface of the bulb using a knife. The wound was infected with 15 μl of a spore suspension of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. tulipae; this way approximately 10.000 mould spores infected the wound after which the bulbs were treated with 30 μl of the compositions described in Table 3. Twenty bulbs were treated per composition. In one experiment the trea...