| Cirsium arvense, Creeping or Canada thistle is an increasing problem for farmers. Several attempts to use biological control have been studied. As pathogen to C.arvense. Rostrup1 (1873) noticed the increased number of infected plants by Puccinia punctiformis with increased density of the weed and in 1923 this pathogen was tested in laboratory and in fields. Berestetskii (1997) surveyed the fungal ecology of C.arvense and found 70 different pathogens in 150 specimens. Some have been tried as an agent for mycoherbicide on C.arvense 2,3,4,5,6. In contrary to other pathogens P. punctiformis is an obligate parasite to C.arvense. The pathogen is ubiquitous, easy to distinguish and to extract. |
