Effect of weakly acidic hypochlorous acid water against rice seed-borne pathogens

Abstract

Electrolyzed water has promise for controlling plant pathogen control agents including disinfesting rice seeds; however, the effective component, hypochlorous acid (HA), is unstable, and its efficacy is readily lost upon contact with organic substances. Therefore, weakly acidic hypochlorous acid (waHA) water that retains its activity for a long period was developed. Here, we examined the efficacy of waHA water disinfesting seeds. Treating seeds with waHA water during seed soaking to hasten germination suppressed rice blast, bakanae, bacterial grain rot, bacterial seedling blight and bacterial brown stripe diseases, but treatment before seed soaking suppressed only blast and bakanae diseases. When waHA water, HA electrolyzed water and aqueous NaClO were compared for their effects against several seed-borne pathogens, the waHA water tended to be better than the others at controlling blast and bacterial seedling blight. These results indicate that waHA water can be a practical, effective agent to disinfest rice seed.