VIEW ARTICLE

Ecology and Epidemiology

Composition of Wheat Straw Infested with Cephalosporium gramineum and Implications for Its Decomposition in Soil. T. D. Murray, Research associate, Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University, Pullman 99164-6430; G. W. Bruehl, professor, Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University, Pullman 99164-6430. Phytopathology 73:1046-1048. Accepted for publication 17 February 1983. Copyright 1983 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-73-1046.

Field-grown winter wheat straw infested with C. gramineum contained significantly less acid-detergent fiber, more soluble components, and two to three times more nitrogen than noninfested straw. These results suggest that straw infested with C. gramineum should decompose faster than noninfested straw. However, earlier workers showed that infested straw decomposes at approximately the same rate as noninfested straw, and they discounted the importance of the broad-spectrum antibiotics produced by C. gramineum in survival of the pathogen in straw. It is possible that antibiotics produced by C. gramineum in infested straw offset the nutritive advantages of higher nitrogen and soluble contents and equalize decomposition rates of infested and noninfested straw. Because substrate composition has been overlooked in previous studies of survival of C. gramineum in residue, a reexamination of this question is suggested.