Microbial consortium and its effect on controlling coffee root-lesion nematode (Pratylenchus coffeae) under nursery conditions

In India, the coffee root-lesion nematode (Pratylenchus coffeae) is one of the most destructive pests In many coffee growing areas. The present study was attempted to understand the effects of native microbial consortium (i.e. combination of Azospirillum, Azotobacter, Phosphobacteria, Gluconacetobacter and Psettdomonas) along with arbuscutar mycorrhizal (AM) fungi on the control of coffee root-lesion nematode under nursery conditions. The results indicated that application of microbial consortium (5.0 g seedling⁻¹) plus AM fungi (5.0 g seedling⁻¹) on arabica coffee seedlings found to be superior in increasing all the growth parameters viz., leaf area, shoot length, shoot girth, root length, dry weight, leaf chlorophyll, total phenol of leaf and roots with significant reduction in the nematode populations after three months (18.0 number 100 ml⁻¹ of sterile soil and 18.6 number 100 ml⁻¹ of non-sterile soil) and after six months (14,8 number 100 ml⁻¹ of sterile soil and 17.1 number 100 ml⁻¹ non sterile soli) compared to control. Similar to soil nematode population, the microbial consortium plus AM applied treatments recorded significantly lower nematode population in roots after six months of inoculation compared to other treatments.