Management of Collar Rot of Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum) by Trichoderma Harzianum and Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria

Abstract

Collar rot (Sclerotium rolfsii) of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is one of the devastating soil-borne diseases of fungal origin, due to which 10-30% yield loss is recorded annually according to severity of the disease. Management of collar rot of chickpea is not feasible in the absence of effective soil fungicides. However, Trichoderma harzianum and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have shown high efficacy against this disease in vitro as well as in the field. We used T. harzianum (10 4 , 10 6 and 10 8 spore/ml) and two PGPRs (Pseudomonas fluorescens strain 4 and P. aeruginosa) as foliar spray with the fresh and heat inactivated microorganisms. Foliar application of T. harzianum (10 8 spore/ml) and P. fluorescens strain 4 (10 8 cfu/ml) showed maximum efficacy in reducing plant mortality as compared to the control. Foliar application of fresh-and heat-inactivated (121°C for 10 min) P. fluorescens strain 4, and T. harzianum reduced 15-25% plant mortality but P. aeruginosa showed very little disease control of 10-15%. However, regarding plant growth promotion, it was observed that fresh-and heatinactivated P. fluorescens strain 4 showed maximum efficacy followed by fresh and heat inactivated P. aeruginosa and T. harzianum as compared to the control. The disease-controlling efficacy was also associated with the increase in phenolic acid synthesis in chickpea plants. The control of chickpea collar rot by biocontrol agents is safe and ecologically sound and appears to be a healthy approach to the disease control.

Effect of Plant Extracts, Bio Agents and Fungicides against Sclerotium rolfsii Causing Collar Rot in Chickpea

“…Sclerotia were small, round and appeared like mustard seed. Similar results were reported by Maurya et al [18] , in chickpea. Observations on interaction effect of solvents, flowers and concentrations on dry mycelial weight of S. rolfsii were recorded and percent inhibition were determined and presented in Table 1.…”

“…These results clearly indicate that biocontrol agents in combination with marigold flower extract provided protection to chickpea against collar rot. Maurya et al [18] reported 30-40% reduction in collar rot of chickpea with foliar application of T. harzianum and P. fluorescens.…”

Effect of soil amendment with Chenopodium album dry biomass and two Trichoderma species on growth of chickpea var. Noor 2009 in Sclerotium rolfsii contaminated soil

“…Other recent studies also showed that different isolates of Trichoderma spp. had the ability to reduce the severity of foliar and root diseases (Muthukathan et al 2020), presumably by inducing systemic resistance in plants (Maurya et al 2008).…”

BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL CONTROL OF DAMPING –OFF OF PEPPER CAUSED BY Sclerotium rolfsii Sacc.

“…rolfsii Sacc. has been reported as the causal organism of dampingoff, root-,stem-, pod-rots and reduce of fresh and dry weight of Solanaceous plants (Okereke and Wokocha, 2007;Abiaa and Muhammed, 2008 ;Jin-hyeuk et al, 2008 andMaurya et al,2008).…”

“…Chemical control of damping -off and root rot of Solanaceous plants was also investigated by some researchers (Attia and Abada, 1994;Abd El-Kareem et al, 2004;Yaqub and Saleem, 2005;EL-Mohamedy et al, 2006;Palaiah et al,2007 andMaurya et al, 2008).…”