Management of vascular wilt ( Fusarium Oxysporum F.SP. lentis ) of Lentil ( Lens Culinaria Medic.) through botanicals and bioagents

Abstract

Lentil is an important pulse crop and plays very important role in the supply of the protein to under nourished vegetarian population of the country. Fusarium wilt of lentil caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lentis is one of the wide spread and destructive diseases in India under rice-based cropping system. Use of synthetic fungicides has led to the emergence of several problems like environment pollution, residual effect in grains and killing of non-target organism(s). Hence, for minimizing the losses caused by Fusarium wilt, four plant extracts such as Garlic, Neem, Eucalyptus, Tulsi and three antagonistic bio-agents viz. Trichoderma viride, Trichoderma harzianum and Pseudomonas fluorescence were evaluated. The disease incidence was not much reducing by Neem (40.50 %) and Tulsi (34.45 %) at 10 per cent concentration of 60 days after sowing. The same trends were also found in per cent disease reduction. However, per cent disease reduction in between Eucalyptus (25.50 %) and Garlic (28.00 %), Tulsi (34.45 %) was at par to each other. The Maximum per cent disease reduction was found in Eucalyptus (25.50 %) and Garlic (28.00 %), Lowering the disease incidence and higher per cent disease reduction was also found in Trichoderma viride (19.64 %) as compared to Trichoderma harzianum (35.50 %) and Pseudomonas fluorescence (28.43 %) at 10 per cent concentration of 60 days after sowing.