Author(s)

Yonghong Qi¹, Li Meng¹, Sufang Cao², Minquan Li^1*, Shulong Chen^3*, Deyou Ye⁴

¹Institute of Plant Protection, Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, China.
²Institute of Fruit and Floriculture Research, Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, China.
³Institute of Plant Protection, Hebei Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences/IPM Centre of Hebei Province, Baoding, China.
⁴Institute of Vegetable Research, Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, China.

The chemotactic responses of Meloidogyne incognita were studied in salt gradients in an agarose gel. Forty-eight combinations of sodium, copper, cesium, manganese , barium, potassium, ferric or ammonium cations and chloride, nitrate, sulphate, hydrogen-phosphate, bicarbonate, acetic acid, thiocyanic acid and hydroxyl anions were tested at six concentrations from 0.0625 × 10^-2 to 2 × 10^-2 mol·L^-1. M. incognita was repellented to salts that included Cl^- and SCN^-. Other salts that comprised the same anions had different chemotactic responses, among which M. incognita was repellented to ammonium salts that included Ba(NO₃)₂, NH₄NO₃, Mn(NO₃)₂, and hydrogen-phosphate salts that included KH₂PO₄, K₂HPO₄, and bicarbonate salts that included Na₂CO₃, K₂CO₃, (NH₄)₂CO₃, KHCO₃, and hydroxyl salts that included KOH, NaOH, and organic acid that included C₂H₄O₂, C3H₆O3 and C₄H₆O₆. The repellent or attraction properties of different salts having the same cations were not consistent. The order of repellence was SCN^- > NO₃^- > Cl^- > OH^- > CO₃^2- >H₂PO^-₄ > organic acid >SO₄^2- . The chemotaxis of nematodes to KCl, Ba(NO₃)₂, NH₄NO₃, Mn(NO₃)₂, (NH₄)₂CO₃, CH₃COOH and C₄H₆O₆ increased with the increasing concentration, while the concentration of other salts tested did not influence nematode chemotaxis significantly.

Meloidogyne incognita, Inorganic Salts, Organic Salts, Chemotaxis

Qi, Y. , Meng, L. , Cao, S. , Li, M. , Chen, S. and Ye, D. (2015) Chemotaxis of Meloidogyne incognita in Response to Different Salts. Agricultural Sciences, 6, 900-907. doi: 10.4236/as.2015.69086.