Among the fungal diseases infecting tomato crops, early blight caused by Alternaria solani (Ellis and Martin) Jones and Grout is one of the most catastrophic disease causing accountable losses. Further, all of the tomato cultivars presently under cultivation have succumb more or less to early blight disease. Therefore, the present studies were undertaken for the pathogenic, cultural, morphological and molecular variability among the isolates of A. solani. The results reveal all of the eight isolates of A. solani as pathogenic to tomato (Cv. Pusa Ruby) and showed variability amongst them. The test isolates could grow better on the basic culture medium potato dextrose agar; however, highest mycelial growth was recorded on the isolate AsLt (88.50 mm), followed by AsBd (82.36 mm) and AsHl (78.40 mm), with excellent sporulation. All of the eight test isolates exhibited a wide range of variability in respect of their mycelial and conidial dimensions and septation. RAPD-PCR analysis of the four most virulent A. solani isolates, using 13 OPA primers revealed that the isolates AsBd (Beed) and AsLt (Latur) were closely related with 85% genetic similarity whereas, the isolates AsHl (Hingoli) and AsJl (Jalna) were closely related with 50% genetic similarity, but distinct from that of AsLt and AsBd isolates.

Nutritional and physiological requirements of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri were studied using most virulent isolate FOC-2 (Jalna). Effect of different culture media on mycelial growth of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri showed significant differences in growth and sporulation. In vitro, culture media studied, Potato dextrose agar (89.66 mm) and Richard agar medium (85.66) produced significantly highest mean mycelial growth and sporulation. The temperature in the range of 25 0 C to 30 0 C and pH having range of 6.0 to 7.0 produce significantly highest mean mycelial growth and sporulation of the test pathogen.

Eight culture media, eight temperature levels, nine pH levels, seven carbon and six nitrogen sources tested exhibited better growth of Alternaria carthami. Results revealed that Potato dextrose agar gave significantly highest growth (90.00 mm), followed by Potato malt agar (84.16 mm) with excellent sporulation. Temperature levels indicated that highest mean mycelial growth (85.66 mm) was recorded at 30°C followed by 25°C (83.83 mm) and 20°C (66.33 mm). However, maximum mean mycelial growth (85.83 mm) was recorded at pH 6.5 with excellent sporulation, followed by at pH 6 (82.00 mm) and pH 7 (70.33 mm) with excellent and good sporulation, respectively. The carbon sources exhibited varied radial mycelial growth and sporulation of the test pathogen. However, highest radial mycelial growth (86.00 mm) and excellent sporulation was recorded on glucose, followed by on maltose (82.83 mm) and starch (80.33 mm) with excellent sporulation. Nitrogen sources resulted highest radial mycelial growth (82.55 mm) and excellent sporulation on potassium nitrate, followed by on peptone (75.83 mm) with good sporulation. Least radial mycelial growth (19.00 mm) was recorded on urea with poor sporulation.How to view point the article : Taware, M.R., Gholve, V.M., Wagh, S.S., Kuldhar, D.P., Pawar, D.V. and Chavan, A.A. (2014). Effect of different culture media, temperature, pH, carbon and nitrogen sources on mycelial growth and sporulation of Alternaria carthami causing Alternaria blight of safflower. Internat. J. Plant Protec., 7(2) : 349-353.

Background: Weeds are widely reported as a key constraint in organic agriculture. Soybean-chickpea is important cropping sequence adopted in Maharashtra State under irrigated condition. Weed management is a serious problem in both the crop and it mostly controlled through chemical weed control. Today, widespread use of herbicides has resulted in purporated environmental and health problem as well as residual problems to succeeding crops. Now a days residue free food requirement is high. In organic farming cultural and mechanical methods are necessary to break the weed cycle. So, keeping this point in view present investigation was carried out to evaluate organic weed management practices on growth, yield and weed control in soybean-chickpea sequence under irrigated condition. Methods: A field experiment was conducted during Kharif and rabi seasons of 2017-18 and 2018-19. The present investigation consisted of ten weed management practices viz. two hand weeding at 20-25 and 45-50 DAS, one hoeing 20-25 DAS + one hand weeding at 45-50 DAS, soybean + sunhemp incorporation after 35-40 DAS in kharif season and chickpea + safflower (2:1) in rabi season, stale seed bed + reduced spacing + 2 tonne of wheat straw + one hand weeding at 25 DAS, soil mulch at the time of sowing + one hand pulling at 25 DAS, incorporation of neem cake 1.5 tonne/ ha 15 days before sowing + one hand weeding at 25 DAS, soil solarization with 25 μ polythene mulch during summer + one hand weeding at 25 DAS, mulching with straw, weed free and weedy check. Result: The higher values of growth attributes was recorded by weed free treatment which was on par with two hand weeding at 20-25 and 45-50 DAS and soil solarization with 25 μ polythene mulch during summer + one hand weeding at 25 DAS and significantly superior over rest of the treatments during both the year study. Application of stale seed bed with reduced spacing and 2 tonne of wheat straw along with one hand weeding 25 DAS recorded higher soybean equivalent yield followed by soybean + sunhemp incorporation (35-45DAS) in kharif and chickpea + safflower (2:1) in rabi season during both the year. The lower weed density, dry weight and highest weed control efficiency at 40 days after sowing for both monocot and dicot weeds was recorded by weed free treatment followed by soil solarization with 25 μ polythene mulch during summer + one hand weeding at 25 DAS in soybean and chickpea during both the year.

Stem rot caused by Sclerotium rolfsii Sacc. has been observed to cause rapid mortality in chilli plantations. Among eight fungicides and eight botanicals tested in vitro against S. rolfsii, the result revealed that maximum (100%) inhibition was observed in carboxin, propiconazole, hexaconazole, difenconazole and carbendazim at all three concentrations viz., 500, 1000 and 1500 ppm followed by captan (79.30, 82.76 and 85.23%) and triadimenfon (49.13, 60.23 and 65.33%) over control. Minimum per cent of inhibition was observed in the plates poisoned with copper oxychloride (47.26, 51.63 and 54.40%), respectively at all three concentrations. Among botanicals, at 5 and 10 per cent concentrations, significantly highest average inhibition was recorded with neem (74.81%), followed by tulsi (67.10%) and nirgudi (65.81%). Significantly least average inhibition was recorded with sorghum (47.23 %). The rest of the botanicals recorded more than 50.00 per cent average inhibition of mycelial growth over untreated control (00.00%).