The impact of soil and crop management practices on soil-borne root diseases and wheat yields

Abstract. The most important root diseases of wheat in southern Australia are take-all, rhizoctonia bare patch and cereal cyst nematode. Control of grasses in annual pastures in the year preceding wheat crops decreased take-all on wheat and the amount of the take-all fungus in soil, decreased the damage caused by Rhizoctonia , and gave yield increases. Fumigation of cereal-growing soils gave yield increases in wheat of 0.75 to 2.8 tonnes per hectare, indicating that in southern Australia soil-borne root diseases impose a major constraint on productivity. Residues of the herbicide chlorsulfuron one year after application to an alkaline soil increased root damage by Rhizoctonia in barley and decreased grain yields by 1.5 tonnes per hectare. Root damage by cereal cyst nematode was decreased by direct drilling wheat and also by having a barley cultivar resistant to the pathogen as a preceding crop. The number of cysts of cereal cyst nematode on wheat roots was increased by the application of superphosphate in bands with the seed. These results show that in southern Australia soil management strategies which decrease the levels of root disease greatly increase grain yields.