Brand new BC research has discovered two new types of fungi that provide protection against grapevine trunk disease, which could prove useful for the province’s wine industry.
Grapevine trunk disease is a fungus that decays plants and usually has to be contained via chemicals if it starts to spread throughout a farmer’s crop of grapes.
But now, researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have found that a pair of new fungus species, known as Trichoderma Viticola and Trichoderma Canadense are natural predators to trunk disease and are therefore, very effective at destroying the fungus.
Now Trichoderma fungi are typically used to fight these types of diseases in biopesticides, however these fungi were used specifically to protect grapevines and could end up being the foundation for a natural solution to the disease that provides a great threat to grape farmers.
