Study of shelf life of Trichoderma viride on different carrier materials by using coconut husk, groundnut shell, charcoal powder

Abstract

Trichoderma viride widely used as a biofertilizer and as a bio-controlling agent for management of soil borne plant pathogen. Though Trichoderma viride has very good potential in the management of disease it could not be used as a spore suspension under field condition. Thus culture of T.viride should be immobilised in certain carrier material and should be prepare as formulation for easy application, storage, commercialization and field use. In this present work different carrier materials like coconut husk, groundnut shell, charcoal powder of different pore size were used to store and keep viable the culture of T. viride. The carriers which are easily available, free of cost and not harmful to the environment were selected for experiment. Potato dextrose broth formulation was used and the population of T. viride assessed for 120 days after 30 days of interval. Charcoal powder of 2 mm pore size was found to be the best carrier material as it shows maximum number of viable T. viride after 120 days (58 x 108 cfu g-1) compared to other carrier materials.