BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF TOMATO WILT FUSARIUM

UNDER PLASTIC-HOUSE CONDITIONS

Bull. Fac. Agric., Cairo Univ 66: 1-10

2015

N. S. Al-Ameiri

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is considered as one of the most important vegetable crops in the world and Jordan. Fusarium wilt of tomato, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici is one of the most prevalent serious diseases of tomato. The experiment was set up in a completely randomized design (CRD), in which six different treatments were used. Fresh and dry weights of shoot and root, plant heights, root colonization, disease severity, disease incidence and disease control percentage were recorded. Results indicated that there were no symptoms observed in the control plants treated with Trichoderma harzianum alone or in plants grown in un-inoculated soil (tap water treatment). F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici caused a significant decrease in plant growth of both shoot and root fresh weights. The decrease in fresh shoot weight caused by the pathogen was 44.0% and 45.8%, respectively, as compared with using T. harzianum as spore suspension or mycelium.  Inoculation with T. harzianum increased shoot and root fresh weights as compared with un-inoculated plants or plants treated with F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici treatment. T. harzianum also achieved a significant increase in plant height as compared with the control. Plants height significantly decreased with F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici treatment. The results also showed a reduction in both disease severity and incidence in the bio-control treatment as compared with the plants treated with T. harzianum mycelium and T. harzianum spore suspension. T. harzianum mycelium treatment has significantly increased colonization percentage than T. harzianum spore suspension treatment. Healthy plants increased with application of T. harzianum, and this percentage increased and reached 55% and 64% with spore and mycelium treatments, respectively