Effects of irrigation on uninucleate Rhizoctonia on nursery seedlings of Pinus syivestris and Picea abies grown in peat growth medium

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Abstract
Container seedlings of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst) were inoculated with uninucleate Rluzoctonia fungus. The seedlings were grown in a greenhouse in light, low‐humidified sphagnum peat growth medium with three irrigation treatments. The seedlings were irrigated each day, which yelded matric potentials below ‐2 kPa, or when about ‐5 or ‐20 kPa matric potential was achieved in the growth medium. It was found that uninucleate Rhizoctonia sp. had a significant effect on mortality, shoot and root dry masses and stem diameter of both pine and spruce seedlings in the daily and ‐5 kPa irrigation treatments. In the driest ‐20 kPa treatment, mortality of inoculated seedlings was also high compared with control. The main result was that the root dieback caused by uninucleate Rhizoctonia sp. cannot be avoided merely by controlling water supply.

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