Discovery of biopesticides for the protection of Canadian canola crops

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum causes significant annual yield losses to Canada's canola crops and can infect more than 400 different plant species. It is generally managed with the use of fungicides, however, commonly used synthetic pesticides have been found to have adverse effects on agricultural soils and surrounding ecosystems. A sustainable alternative to synthetic pesticides is biopesticides which are defined as microorganisms, and/or their natural products that can kill, suppress or reduce the rigor of a target pest or pathogen. They are already widely used in greenhouses and organic pest management regimes and are expected to become more widely used in large-scale farming as environmental concerns and soil health issues continue to worsen. Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) bioautography assays are inexpensive, rapid, and high throughput in-situ assays that allow one to determine the antimicrobial, antioxidant, or enzyme inhibitory activity of complex microbial extracts as well as the identity of active metabolites and has potential for preliminary work in biopesticides discovery research. Findings concerning the discovery of novel biopesticides active against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum will be discussed.