Screening of microbial strains for antagonist property against fusarium species

Abstract

Tea (Camellia sinensis) being a perennial and monoculture crop is prone to many pests and diseases. Tea plant is mostly attacked by many foliar, stem and root disease. Among many tea disease like black rot, red rust, blister blight etc, Fusarium die back disease is becoming a great concern in the recent time. It is further observed from the research study that there exist a great species diversification among the pathogenic stain of Fusarium die back disease i.e Fusarium solani. Thus an attempt was made for the first time in Assam to make a study of the Fusarium solani species complex and Fusarium species variations in tea. From the disease survey report it was found that recently Upper Assam and South bank of the Brahmaputra valley is threatened with the spread of the Fusarium die back disease caused by Fusarium species. Using this strategy, we isolated and identified morphologically 9 numbers of fungal isolates, among which 4 dominant strains coded as FDB26, FDNKY, FDHK, FDPT, FDHPJ were separated on the basis of their difference in the morphological and microscopic observation and were further used for antagonistic screening trial. Three microbial culture collected from preserved microbial depository of TTRI were used for the antagonistic study which are namely Trichoderma viride (TV), Pseudomonas corrugata (PDS-01), Bacillus subtilis (BST). Thus from the antagonistic screening test it was observed that TV, PDS-01 and BST showed highest antagonism against FDPT. PDS-01 and TV exhibited strong activities against isolates of FDB26. Thus in conclusion, we can say that Pseudomonas corrugata (PDS-01)showed highest antagonistic potentiality against all the four dominant Fusarium strains and could be used as an efficient Bioinoculant and Biocontrol agent in Fusarium die back disease infested areas.