Buckeye Rot of Tomato in India: Present Status, Challenges, and Future Research Perspectives

Abstract

Tomato in India is commonly exposed to various diseases of fungal, bacterial, and viral origin, resulting in substantial yield losses (≥50%). Buckeye rot (caused by Phytophthora nicotianae var. parasitica) is among the major constraints in the successful cultivation of tomato crops in various parts of the world including the Solan district of Himachal Pradesh state, India. The fruit rot becomes more devastating under high humidity and wet soils. Symptoms generally appear on green fruit as alternate dark and light brown concentric rings. The genome size of P. nicotianae var. parasitica is 82 Mb with >23,000 predicted genes. High humidity (> 60%) and optimal temperatures (20-25 ºC), along with rainfall (≥ 10 mm), help to disperse the pathogen as the inoculum reaches the fruit through splashing rains. Sporangia germinate indirectly by producing zoospores at 20-25o C, or directly via germ tubes at >25ºC. In the absence of suitable resistant varieties, no single management practice is sufficient to keep the disease below the economic threshold level; therefore, integration of cultural and chemical methods is preferable. This paper aims to focus on the etiology, and management challenges of buckeye rot. We recommend innovative disease management strategies like identification and deployment of resistant cultivars as well as spraying of synthetic chemical fungicides, biocontrol agents, and use of abiotic chemicals that induce resistance, for developing sustainable crop production practices.

Temporal transcriptome of tomato elucidates the signaling pathways of induced systemic resistance and systemic acquired resistance activated by Chaetomium globosum

“…Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is highly nutritive vegetable crop plant of immense economic importance which shares 15% of total vegetables produced worldwide. India is the second largest producer in the world with 19.7 million metric tons production from 809 ('000) hectares land (Gupta et al, 2022). The tomato crop is infested by several pathogens that lead to severe losses in production.…”

Determination of Phytophthora Species Causing Root and Crown Rot on Tomatoes Grown in Antalya Province and Reactions of Some Tomato Genotypes against Phytophthora nicotianae

“…Phytophthora nicotianae has a very wide host spectrum. Since its first description on tobacco was in 1896, it has been reported to cause root rot, crown rot, leaf blight, stem canker, tip blight and fruit rot on about 255 plant species from 90 families (Erwin and Ribeiro, 2005;Cline et al, 2008;Minuto et al, 2008;Gilardi et al, 2013;2014;Gupta et al, 2022).…”

Prevalence and Epidemiology of Bacterial Wilt of Tomato

“…There is a very sharp relationship between intensity of wilt diseases and different meteorological factors (Singh et al, 2014, Attri et al, 2018. Temperature is the most important factor that affects host-pathogen interactions (Gupta et al, 2022). Avoiding the development of tomato plants during the period of high environmental temperature by altering the transplanting dates helped in reducing the bacterial wilt disease incidence (Wei at al., 2015).…”