Notícias
JBRJ plant health on the agenda at BGjournal
Cover of BGjournal V. 21 no. 2
The September 2024 issue of the BG journal - Journal of Botanic Gardens Conservation International was dedicated to the themes of botanic gardens and plant health. The publication features two articles on the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden.
In the section on biosafety in botanical gardens, an article discusses the work carried out by JBRJ's Plant Health Laboratory in the integrated management of diseases and pests in living collections. The work, at various levels, ranges from on-site monitoring of these problems to the application of minimally invasive treatments designed to safeguard the Arboretum's ecosystem, always seeking a sustainable relationship with the environment. The study also covers future perspectives, such as the use of substances that induce resistance to diseases and the possible impacts of climate change on plant health.
The section on monitoring plant health in botanical gardens, meanwhile, features a case study on the natural control of fungi in medicinal plants, carried out by researchers Viviane Stern da Fonseca Kruel (curator of the Thematic Collection of Medicinal Plants at JBRJ) and Patrícia Carlin Fagundes. The authors used Embrapa's Fungi reported in Brazilian plants database and reviewed the literature to find natural, low-cost alternatives to combat the problems caused by fungi in the collection. One of the conclusions was that diversifying fungal control strategies with these alternatives can bring significant improvements to the health of the plants in the collection, while reducing negative impacts on the environment and human health.