Fengycins found in Compost Tea!!! Wait, what's a fengycin?

Biocontrol effects of bacteria isolated from compost tea against postharvest disease of tomato fruit (Solanum lycopersicum L.)
June 2026
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Excellent news everybody!!!!  They found fengycins in Compost Tea!!!   Tell your friends, tell your family!!!  Take the day off of work and celebrate!!!!  Wait.... what's a fengycin?   Oh, um, yah, ok not necessarily a common term in the daily vernacular of most humans.   No worries... we'll change that now!

Fengycins are molecules created by bacteria that act as potent biological control agents.  These lipopeptides disrupt fungal cell membranes, cause cellular leakage, and induce systemic defense responses in plants.  Basically, they are molecules that fight fungal disease in plants.

This was found out in an experiment done by the Department of Chemistry at Carleton University in Canada.  The researchers wanted to know how compost tea affected the disease causing fungi, Alternaria and Botyrtis.  To do this they brewed compost tea using composted sheep manure, then they isloated some of the bacteria in the tea, then in petri dishes saw which of those inhibited disease.  They found the major players were Bacillus velezensis and Pseudomonas azotoformans.  

They then took tomatoes, injected a small wound with the beneficial bacteria, and then placed a small plug that contained the disease causing organisms into the same wound site.  They wanted to see if the beneficial bacteria stopped the disease growth.  They compared tomatoes with the beneficial Bacillus and Pseudomonas with tomatoes that got only a pathogen/disease-causing fungal plug.   

And guess what.  The beneficial bacteria treated tomatoes fared wayyy better than the control group.  Once they saw that there was a positive effect, they then looked at what the bacteria were producing to see what was keeping the disease from taking off.  That's when they found the fengycins!!!   They also found iturins, another anti-fungal compound.  The beneficial bacteria from sheep manure tea were preventing the tomatoes from  rotting! 

Is there something special about sheep manure compost tea, or are these same microbes found in teas of all types?  These questions will be answered by scientists the world round.   Stay tuned!!!

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