Vol. 11, Special Issue 6 (2022)

Author(s):
Sheeba Jasmine R, G Anand and N Tamilselvan

Abstract:
Banana production across the globe takes place under diversified agro-ecological and social-economic conditions where disease pressure varies significantly. The production of banana can be curtailed by several fungal diseases. Among them, Fusarium wilt (FW) of bananas (FWB) caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc) is the main threat and limiting factor for different banana cultivars of economic and strategic importance all over the world (Kema et al., 2021). Keeping this in view, an assessment (On-Farm Trial) with two different eco-friendly modules viz. TNAU module & NRCB module were tested in the farmers’ field at five different locations to verify the efficacy and suitability in controlling Fusarium wilt in Banana during 2020-21. The OFT was carried out in five farmers’ field at predominatly banana growing villages viz., Kookur, Idayatrumangalam and Melavazhai of Lalgudi block of Tiruchirappalli district and the experiment design was Factorial Randomized Block design (FRBD) with five replications. The study results revealed that the incidence of wilt incidence was lesser in NRCB module (8.25%) followed by TNAU module (10.43%) when compared to that of with farmer’s practice which recorded a disease severity of 29.82 percent. To conclude, the biocontrol agents have been proven to have a good effect on the fruit yield and weight besides the suppression of the pathogen. Biocontrol should not be considered as an independent tool, but adequately implemented in an integrated management framework.