Assessing the potential of bio-agents and botanicals against chickpea wilt

Protein Sources are large in numbers but vegetarians have limited choice of milk and pulses. In pulses, chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the important and rich sources of protein but its production is constrained by various diseases in worldwide. Among diseases, wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri (Padwick) is the most important threat where annual losses range from 10 to 90%. Although, various fungicidal treatments have been recommended but harsh effects of chemicals has raised human requirement to find an alternative to manage the disease. Hence, a field study was carried out using bio-agents and botanical viz., T₁ (T. viride + P. flourescens + NSKE) @ 5%, T₂ (T. viride + P. flourescens) @5%, T₃ (P. flourescens + NSKE) @ 5%, T₄ (T. viride + NSKE) @ 5%, T₅ (Trichoderma viride @ 5%), T₆ (Pseudomonas flourescens @ 5%), T₇ (Neem seed kernel extract @ 5%) and T₀ (Control). Results revealed that chickpea wilt incidence was successively reduced (13.89) and growth parameters such as plant height (26.62), number of branche/plant (15.13) and yield (12.44 q/hec.) were higher in combination treatment T₁ (T. viride + P. flourescens + NSKE @ 5%) followed by T₄ (T. viride + NSKE @ 5%).