Vol. 11, Special Issue 7 (2022)

Author(s):
Jayashree Teggi, MN Sreenivasa, P Jones Nirmalnath, Yashoda Hegde and SM Hiremath

Abstract:
In order to fulfill the needs of the human consumption, farmers are growing the tomato throught out the year in India. In India, it is grown as transplanted crop. Initially it can be grown on nursery beds and then transplanted to main field. At seedling stage, it is severely attacked by various pests, pathogens and insects which results in the death of seedlings. Biological management is one of the best biological method for the plant in which efficient and useful living organisms can be used against harmful pathogens which cause severe infection and death of plant. Now-a-days use of bio-control agents is the safest method for soil as well as plant to manage the diseases for protection of plant against attack of harmful pathogens. In recent years, biological management is accepted as major practice in agriculture which seeks to veer away from environmental and health contamination brought about by persistent pesticide and chemical fertilizer usage. In the present study the bio-control agents such as Bacillus sp., Trichoderma sp., were isolated from tomato rhizospheric soil, characterized and screened for antagonistic activity against Fusarium oxysporum. Out of 60 bacterial isolates, isolate KBI 36 showed highest per cent inhibition where as among 30 fungal isolates KTI 16 showed significantly highest per cent inhibition against Fusarium oxysporum. During pot experiment studies, these isolates were inoculated along with AM fungi. The plants inoculated with AM fungi + B. s ref. + T. h ref. showed least per cent disease incidence and highest growth parameters and yield followed by plants inoculated with AM fungi + KBI 36 + KTI 16. Thus from the present study, it is concluded that combined use of bio-control agents is an effort to shift microbiological equilibrium in favor of increased plant growth production as compared to single inoculants as well as uninoculated plants.