Agricultural and Biological Research

Comparative effect of neem oil and bioagents against leaf blight of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) caused by Alternaria solani

Achintya Kumar Dubey, Bankey Lal*, Shashi Tiwari, Ashutosh Upadhyay and Pranjal Singh

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) of Solanaceae family is an important vegetable worldwide. Among the vegetables, tomato ranks first among the processing crops. It is very good source of vitamins A, B, C and minerals. They are rich in suitable contents of minerals viz. iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorus and sulfur. Tomato is native of Andaman region that includes parts of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chilli. All tomato wild relatives are native to this area. Early blight is one of the most destructive fungal diseases affecting potato, tomato, and other solanaceous plants like eggplant and pepper. This disease can destroy a tomato field in two or three weeks. Therefore, the present research was carried out to control the alternarial blight by using different bio agents and botanicals as well as their combinations at field of Department of Plant Pathology, Naini Agricultural Institute Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh during 2018-2019. Different bioagents and botanicals where used in different concentrations. The experiment comprises seven treatment combination is T₀:Control, T₁:Neem oil+T. viride, T₂:Neem oil+P. florescens, T₃:T. viride+P. florescens, T₄:T. viride+P. florescens+Neem oil, T₅:Neem oil and T₆:Trichoderma viride and T₇:Pseudomonas flourescens. Results have revealed that the combination of Neem oil+Pseudomonas flourescens was the best effective in comparison to other treatment followed by Trichoderma viride+Pseudomonas flourescens+Neem oil was effective. It was also observed that these treatments are organic as well as it also has good cost benefit ratio.