The Tobacco Research Institute, located in San Antonio de los Baños, works to incorporate new results in its scientific endeavor. One of them is related to the isolation and in vitro selection of bacteria Bacillus antagonists, a causal agent of the false Orobanche of tabacco, whose author is the young Yunior Morán Gómez.
One of these scientific works is related to the isolation and in vitro selection of the Bacillus Antagonists bacteria, causal agent of the false Orobanche of tobacco. In order to obtain this result, the researchers determined the minimum doses of application of the bioproduct in the soil, which are necessary to avoid the expression of false Orobanche symptoms in tobacco soils, colonized with the phytopathogenic bacteria that cause this disease, which considerably reduces the cost of this technology. This result allows the recovery of the areas affected by the disease at present, where economic losses of around more than 3 million pesos are estimated.
For the first time, it was demonstrated at a national and international level that the antagonist strain Bacillus BA-Ga12 is effective in the control of Nocardiasp, the causal agent of the false Orobanche of tobacco. Until now, no biological control method was available for the control of this agent in the soil of tobacco plantations affected by this disease. A distinctive feature of these studies is that the bioproduct used, when extracted from the soil of the tobacco plantations, is not harmful to the environment, nor to human health.
The control of the disease has a significant social impact in the central and eastern region of the country (highly contaminated soils) because it prevents farmers from abandoning tobacco cultivation (the only source of income for many peasants) due to the considerable damages that this disease causes. to the plantation. On the other hand, this product is easy to manufacture and use, it is economically accessible; compatible with nature, and is not pathogenic to humans or animals.
From the environmental point of view it also represents a possible solution to the problems caused by the systematic application of chemical products in agriculture such as the resurgence of primary and secondary pests, the development of genetic resistance, environmental pollution and damage to health. human Many of these products cause irreparable damage to the central nervous system, and others are classified as carcinogenic.