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The powdery mildew disease of rubber (Oidium heveae) is jointly controlled by the winter temperature and host phenology

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Abstract

Rubber powdery mildew disease (Oidium heveae) is a serious threat to natural rubber production (Hevea brasiliensis) in some rubber developing regions of the world. Both phenological- and meteorological-related factors have been reported influencing the powdery mildew disease. However, few studies have investigated the effects of both phenological- and meteorological-related factors on the disease. The objective of this study is to quantify the contributions of phenological- and meteorological-related factors to affect the disease. We used the partial least squares (PLS) regression method to comprehensively quantify the effects of thirty-five phenological related factors and six meteorological factors on the infection level of powdery mildew of rubber trees over 9-year records (2003–2011). The relative contributions of significant factors were further investigated by the variation partition analysis. We found that the most influential variables were the mean temperature during winter and the duration of leaf development to maturation which explained 32 and 26% of the variations in the infection level. We found the controlling role of winter mean temperature, for the first time, on the infection level of powdery mildew. The controlling role of winter temperature may have directly increase the infection level when winter temperature is high and indirectly increase the infection level through prolonging the duration of leaf development to maturation, although the duration itself had smaller influences. We detected a warming trend of the winter temperatures from 2003 to 2011, which indicates that the infection level of powdery mildew will be increased if the winter warming continues.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Belmont Forum Collaborative Research Action “Mountains as Sentinels of Change -2015” (No. 41661144001), and also by the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (QYZDY-SSW-SMC014). This work is also supported by Key Research Project (No. 2017YFC0505101)”. This work is also supported by a visiting scholar grant to Deli Zhai to the University of Northern Arizona in 2017–2018 from the Kunming Institute of Botany. The authors would like to thank Dr. Wang Jing from East China Normal University for her help on the figures of early version and for her supports in performing the VPA analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Economic Plants and Biotechnology, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 132 Lanhei Road, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China

    De-Li Zhai, Philippe Thaler & Jianchu Xu

  2. Center for Mountain Futures, Kunming Institute of Botany, Honghe County, 654400, Yunnan, China

    De-Li Zhai & Jianchu Xu

  3. CIRAD, UMR Eco&Sols, F-34398, Montpellier, France

    Philippe Thaler

  4. Eco&Sols, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, IRD, Montpellier, France

    Philippe Thaler

  5. Center for ecosystem science and society, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA

    Yiqi Luo

  6. East and Central Asia Regional Office, World Agroforestry (ICRAF), Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China

    Jianchu Xu

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  1. De-Li Zhai
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Correspondence to De-Li Zhai or Jianchu Xu.

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Zhai, DL., Thaler, P., Luo, Y. et al. The powdery mildew disease of rubber (Oidium heveae) is jointly controlled by the winter temperature and host phenology. Int J Biometeorol 65, 1707–1718 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-021-02125-w

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