Vol. 12, Issue 12 (2023)

Author(s):
Payal R Patel, SK Chawda, Krishna A Parmar and JR Pandya

Abstract:
Pointed gourd is an important vegetable crop during lean period. It is affected by various diseases, among them fusarium wilt is one of the major destroyer diseases. Wilt is major threat for pointed gourd cultivation in south Gujarat. It is a cosmopolitan soil borne fungus with both saprophytic and pathogenic members. For the management of this disease, in vitro study was conducted to find out most effective phyto-extracts to control disease caused by Fusarium solani (Mart.) Sacc.. The poison food technique was employed for the evaluation of antifungal activity of the extracts. The phyto-extracts of commonly available six different plant species viz., NSKE (Azadirachta indica), Onion (Allium cepa), Garlic (Allium sativum), Neem (Azadirachta indica), Ginger (Zingiber officinalis) and Mint (Mentha arvensis). Among all the tested phyto extracts, leaf extract of neem (Azadiracta indica)was found significantly most effective with highest mycelial growth inhibition (42.62%), which was found at par with NSKE (41.30%) followed by onion (Allium cepa), mint (Mentha arvensis) and ginger (Zingiber officinalis) to inhibit the mycelial growth of F. solani. The highest colony growth (62.27 mm) and lowest percent inhibition (12.96%) was observed in garlic. From this experiment, it was very clear that extract of onion (Allium cepa), garlic (Allium sativum), neem (Azadirachta indica), ginger (Zingiber officinalis), mint (Mentha arvensis) and NSKE may have some strong toxic principle presents which directly affect the growth of the F. solani. This study indicates that the botanical extracts could be a good alternative in developing a potent plant based fungicides which can be used in organic farming for the management of pointed gourd wilt.