National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Chilli (Capsicum annuum L.) is one of the most important vegetable crop grown in India for both unripe (green) and ripe (red) fruit. Chilli crop is attacked by several diseases viz. damping-off, wilt, anthracnose, die back, root rot, bacterial wilt etc. Among the fungal diseases, damping-off caused by Pythium aphanidermatum (Edson) Fitz. in nurseries is a major constraint in chilli production causing 62% mortality of seedlings and is responsible for 90 per cent of plant death either as pre or post-emergence damping off in the nursery fields and is very common problem in fields and greenhouse, where the organism kills newly emerged seedlings. Traditionally, this disease is controlled by the application of synthetic fungicides like azoxystrobin (strobilurin), fosetyl-aluminum (alkyl phosphonate), mefenoxam and metalaxyl (acylanilide), etridiazole (triadiazole), and propamocarb (carbamate) but phytotoxicity by these fungicide residues are major problems. For this reason, a number of restrictions are imposed in the licensing, registering and using of each chemical. Development of fungicide resistance by Pythium spp. further discourages its use for disease control. Other control measures like host resistance has not yet become a viable measure. No resistant variety has yet been developed and released against these soil borne pathogens causing damping-off at seedling stage. Hence, such situations have prompted researchers to look out for alternate strategies for managing the disease. One of the key elements of such sustainable agriculture is the application of biological controlling strategies, for plant protection. Biological control has been known since 1874, when Roberts showed the suppressive activity of Penicillium glaucum against bacteria and regarded this phenomenon as antagonism. The soil has an enormous untapped potential of antagonistic microbes such as Trichoderma spp., Bacillus spp., and the fluorescent pseudomonads, which show antagonistic effects against soil borne plant pathogenic organisms such as Pythium spp.
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