Publication

Abstract : Tomato, Chilli and Brinjal are commonly known as culinary vegetables, belonging to solanaceae family, form an indispensible culinary spice of almost every cuisines of the world. However, there is still lower production of these three vegetables in the country when compared to other countries. This can be attributed to the infection by various fungal and bacterial pathogens affecting the production at seedling to harvest stages of the crop. Among the fungal disease about 60 % losses at seedling stage in both nursery and field level have been reported due to damping off disease in tomato, chilli and brinjal caused by Pythium species. It is a soil-borne plant pathogen causing seed rot and damping off diseases in many vegetables and it has a wide host range. Because of the reason it is very difficult to control by using any physical/chemical method. Moreover, use of chemicals leads to accumulation of toxicity in soil, animal, human beings and environment. Repeated application of fungicides develops resistant to the pathogen. These constraints have provoked the use of alternative method, especially the use bio-control agents for the past two decades. Biological control involves the use of beneficial organisms, their genes, and/or products, plant extracts and essential oils that reduce the negative effects of plant pathogens and promote positive responses by the plant. Particularly, the use of bacterial antagonist (Psuedomonas fluorescens (Trevisan) Migula) and fungal antagonist (Trichoderma viride Pers.) has been developed commercially as a talc based formulation and tested against several seed borne and soil-borne diseases previously showing promising results in managing disease incidence under both field and greenhouse conditions.