EN
Due to the recent environmental concerns, increasing amounts of research have been diverted to investigating natural products for the control of nematodes. DL-β-Amino butyric acid (BABA) could play a part in limiting nematode damage to plants. In this study, different concentrations of BABA were used as soil drench and seed treatment to determine if they can control Meloidogyne javanica on tomato. In an in vitro test, BABA did not impair mobility of second-stage juveniles of the nematode but 10 and 25 mg/l concentrations reduced hatch. Both of the application methods tested (drenching soil and/or pretreating seeds with 25 mg/l of BABA) for the treatment of nematode infested tomato plants reduced the numbers of galls and egg masses by 82 %; nematode reproduction rates on these plants were reduced to one and, compared with untreated control plants, final nematode density was decreased by nearly 87 %. Increasing BABA concentrations of the treatment solutions to 200 and 500 mg/l resulted in further reduction in nematode damage and reproduction on treated plants, although the differences between the concentrations were not significant. Compared with untreated tomato, gall and egg mass production were decreased by an average of 92 %, and reproduction rates were held below one by both the 200- and 500-mg/l BABA rates. When seeds pretreated with 25 mg/l were also soil drenched with three BABA concentrations, the effects were slightly greater than when each method was used alone. Treated plants showed slight improvement in growth and weight.