Rebekka and Leila start four-week internship at EcoMetEoR and MIE

Note for the media: Use of the pictures provided by iDiv is permitted for reports related to this media release only, and under the condition that credit is given to the picture originator.

Like many other crops sunflowers suffer from soil- born pathogens like the fungus Verticillium dahliae, which can cause up to 30% yield loss. The usual way in agriculture to control this fungus at present is to use variety resistance. However, since resistances have also been reported in these varieties, alternative strategies are needed. A very sustainable  way to control V. dahliae is biofumigation. Biofumigation is defined as the suppression of soil pests and diseases resulting from hydrolysis products, i.e., toxic isothiocyanates (ITCs), released in the soil after incorporation of glucosinolate (GSL)-containing plant tissue (Angus et al. 1994). These released hydrolysis products have an biocide effect on the fungus.

Suitable plants for this purpose are Brassica species like black mustard, turnip rape and fodder radish. Rebekka and Leila (UL) spend their 4-weeks internship at EcoMetEoR to investigate the total glucosinolate content and profile in different brassica species. During their time at iDiv they learn how to isolate glucosinolates from different plant organs and to analyze them via HPLC-UV (Grosser and van Dam, 2012). Furthermore, they will perform mass spectrometric analysis to structurally describe unknown candidates. This project is part of a cooperation with Neila Aid Kaci Ahmed from the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment – INRAE.