Vol. 12, Issue 3 (2023)

Author(s):
Mergewar AR, Mulekar VG, Sunita J Magar and Waghmare SV

Abstract:
Chickpea (Cicer arientum L.) is the most important pulse crop cultivated in India and affected by many fungal and viral diseases and among all the diseases, wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri is one of the most common fungal pathogen which causes ultimate yield loss in chickpea crop. Results revealed that all the bioagents evaluated, exhibited fungistatic/antifungal activity against test pathogen and significantly inhibited its growth over untreated control. Trichoderma harzianum, most effective with highest mycelial growth inhibition (90.56%) of the test pathogen. The second and third best inhibitor antagonists found were T. hamatum and T. virens with mycelial growth inhibition (14.97 mm and 83.37%), respectively. These were followed by Aspergillus niger (83.29%), T. asperellum (81.70%), T. koningii (70.67%), and Metarrhizium anisopliae (60.90%), respectively. However, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Bacillus subtilis were found least effective with highest mycelial growth and minimum mycelial growth inhibition of (29.03%) and (28.37%), respectively.