Management of dry root rot of Chickpea through bio agents and Soil amendments

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the most important pulse crops of India. Occurrence of root rot disease has become a major constraint in recent years for successful and profitable cultivation of chickpea. The efficacy of various Bio agent svi Z..Tricoderma viride, T. harzianum, T. virens, B. subtillus and P. fluoresces through seed treatment and soil amendments with soil application were evaluated against (Rhizoctonia bataticola) Macrophomina phaseolina (Tassi.) Goid causing dry root rot disease of chickpea. All the bio agents and soil amendments were found significantly inhibitory to the fungalgrowth as compared to control in pot house conditions. Antagonistic effect of 3 Trichoderma spp. (T. harzianum and T. viride and T. virus), Pseudomonasfluorescens and Bacillus subtillus against the dry root rot disease-causing fungus Rhizoctonia bataticola, were studied inpot conditions. Studies of relative efficacy of organic/soil amendments were also done in pot house conditions. In the bio agents T. Viridae showed minimumt disease incidence i.e 25.08, 26.55 followed by T. Harzianum 30.21, 33.22 in both the years 2014–15, 2015–16. Among the soil amendments mustard cake showed minimum disease incidence i.e 33.85, 37.10 was found most effective in both the years of testing followed by wheat straw with the (41.98) (45.43) per cent disease incidence, respectively. Thus, these findings indicated that biological control using bio agents and soil amendments can be exploited in the framework of integrated disease management to manage the dry root rot of chickpea.