New report on antifungal activities of commercial insecticides against ginger soft rot and tomato early blight pathogens

Abstract

Agriculture and horticultural crops are every year severely affected with insect pests and diseases. Hence, insecticides and fungicides have predominant role in crop protection sector of agriculture and horticulture. Hence screening of commercial insecticides for antifungal activity is very much essential to reduce cost of crop protection. Were evaluated ten commercial insecticides against fungal pathogens by following poison food technique. Among evaluated insecticides, Emamectin benzoate 5 SG (Proclaim) showed statistically superior antifungal activity with 100.00 per cent mycelial inhibition of Pythium aphanidermatum at 0.02% concentration followed by Profenofos 50 EC (90.97%) at 0.2% concentration. Among ten commercial insecticides were evaluated against Alternaria solani, Emamectin benzoate 5 SG (Proclaim) showed excellent antifungal activity with 100.00 per cent mycelial inhibition of A. solani at 0.02% concentration followed by Profenofos 50 EC (85.09%) and Chloropyriphos 20 EC (83.52%) at 0.2% concentration. The antibiotic streptocycline showed 53.33% and 63.52% mycelial inhibition of P. aphanidermatum and A. solani respectively at 0.05% concentration.