Use of biocontrol agents may offer an alternative approach for control of powdery mildew. Ampelomyces quisqualis is a naturally occurring mycoparasite of powdery mildews, which has been used in other crops e.g. grapes and cucumber with some success. Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (Amylo X) is also approved for use on apple. Experience with this product is limited.
- An isolate – AQ10- is available commercially.
- A. quisqualis is known to occur naturally in the UK on apple powdery mildew.
- Recent experiments with the mycoparasite showed that the AQ10 isolate failed to establish on the apple trees and was not very effective in controlling apple powdery mildew.
- There are now other commercially available hyper-parasites of powdery mildew (eg Verticillium leucanii as Vertalec or Mycotal or Pseudozyma flocculosa as Sporodex) which are reported to be more effective and may be worth evaluating in a future research projects.