Fusarium oxysporum a possible agent for biological control of Papaver somniferum in the Middle East

There is a great need to make biological control research applicable to local political and social situations. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effect of Fusarium oxysporum isolates against opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) and verify their potential as biocontrol agent. For this, a 2-year experiment was carried out under glasshouse (2 trials) and field conditions (2 trials). From infected poppy plants, a total of 16 pathogenic fungal strains were identified as F. oxysporum and used for the experiments. The isolates Ghr18, Ghr5-2, Mr28 and Ghr5-4 caused the highest wilting symptoms on sample plants (P < 0.001). In addition, no significant differences were observed between field and glasshouse conditions (P > 0.5). Moreover, the results showed a clear host specificity of the selected pathogenic isolates. These results suggest that Fusarium isolates have the potential to be used as biological control agents against poppy plants in the Middle East.