Damp water steam impact on fungi on Norway Spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) seeds

Abstract

The development of economics and intensive technologies cause the increase of environmental pollution and demand of natural recourses. Sustainable and environment friendly methods became very important in forestry. The development of ecological methods in the forest management became an important task for future. The decreased use of pesticides affects positively forest ecosystem as well as global situation. One of the most widely applied measures to protect seeds from the damage caused by fungi is spreading theaters. Alternative is to use high temperature. All live organisms are destroyed in a high temperature environment. It is very important to find optimal treatment time of high temperature so that pathogenic organisms would be destroyed but germination characteristics of the seeds would remain unaffected. We investigated how a damp water steam affects fungi on Norway spruce (Picea abies(L.) H. Karst.) seed. Control seed’s set was not affected by damp water steam and contaminated Penicillium sp., Alternaria sp., Murocales, Aspergillus sp and Fusarium sp.fungi. Under the treatment of one second by damp water steam the fungi Fusarium sp. was completely destroyed. Treatment by damp water steam from two till four seconds completely destroyed Murocales, Aspergillus sp. but infection of Penicillium sp., Alternaria sp fungi diminished from 63 till 18 times respectively. From 83.5% till 98.3%.of fungi on the seeds were destroyed when the Norway spruce tissues heated from 59 Cº till 85 Cº.