Bacillus and Trichoderma commercial formulations in the integrated management of leaf spot diseases in soybean

Abstract: Soybean is one of the most important crops in Brazilian agribusiness and phytopathogens can limit its yield, by up to 70 %. Among the management control strategies, the use of biological agents such as Bacillus sp. and Trichoderma sp. have great potential. We evaluate the effect of commercial formulations of Bacillus subtilis BV02 (Bio-Imune®) and Trichoderma asperellum BV10 (Tricho-Turbo®) with chemical fungicides to the control of foliar diseases in soybean crops in seven different locations. The efficiency of the treatments in reducing the area under disease progress of Cercospora leaf blight (Cercospora kikuchii) and brow spot (Septoria glycines) reached 85.5 %. Likewise, the efficiency of these treatments to control Asian soybean rust (Phakopsora pachyrhizi) was up to 84.9 %. In addition, all treatments increased the yield of the soybean. Therefore, the use of Bio-Imune and TrichoTurbo for the management of soybean foliar diseases can be a more sustainable alternative within the practices of integrated management of diseases in soybean.