Efficacy of Pseudomonas spp. against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri

Abstract

Efficacy of five isolates of Pseudomonas fluorescens were evaluated in vitro and using pot culture study against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri. All isolates inhibited mycelial growth of test pathogen, but none of Pseudomonas fluorescens isolates showed complete inhibition of pathogen. PF5 was found most effective in inhibition of mycelial growth (77.92%) followed by isolates PF2 (68.61%). The PF4 and PF3 isolates recorded 64.58% and 55.27% inhibition of mycelial growth, respectively. The PF1 was found least effective in arresting the mycelial growth with 40.42 per cent mycelial inhibition of test pathogen. All isolates of Pseudomonas fluorescens significantly improved the percentage seed germination as compared to control (69.16%) with minimizing the seedling mortality both at pre emergence and post emergence stage. Highest seed germination was recorded in PF5 (87.49%) followed by the PF2 (84.16%), PF4 (80.83%) and PF3 (79.16%). PF1 gave least seed germination (77.49%) of chickpea (JG-62). The least pre and post emergence seedling mortality was found with PF5 followed by seed treatments of PF2, PF4 and PF3.