Management and personnel of BG Biologics LLC have identified a pseudomonad from Lake Erie having the ability to kill pythium pathogens that principals of the firm have isolated from Ohio greenhouses. Preliminary experiments in the firm's hydroponic set-up -- that have been used by the firm's personnel to grow arugula and spinach -- suggests that when this microbe is added to the water, the result is a reduction - and potentially the elimination - of the pathogen from the firm's hydroponic system. If this is, in fact, the case and can be further verified, management suggests that this could begin to look like a promising biocontrol strategy.
