Efficacy of systemic fungicides on the incidence of Fusarium oxysporum, seed germination and seedling vigour index of black gram

Black gram is a most important summer pulse, which has a great market demand with a good potentiality for trade and export. The production of black gram has ceased at higher rate by many fungi, as fungi infest in seeds. In this research, systemic fungicides were applied on seeds of black gram of artificially infected seeds and naturally infected seeds with mycoflora. Seeds of black gram from two different storage sources were tested for seed-borne fungi. Paper towel method, Standard blotter paper method and Agar plate method were used to isolate seed-borne fungi, in which Standard blotter paper method was found to be the best. Seeds from traditional storage were found to be more infested with seed-borne fungi in comparison to seeds from the market. Among isolated fungi species, four dominant species such as Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger, Alternaría alternata and Fusarium spp. Among them Fusariumoxysporum was taken for treatment. Out of seven tested systemic fungicides, Carbendazim (50 % WP) @ 1.5 g/kg of seed was found to be most effective, with the lowest incidence of F oxysporum (7.66 %)and maximum reduction in the incidence (84.68 %) with maximum seed germination (90.33 %) and the highest increase in seed germination over control(69.37 %) and highest with maximum seedling vigour index (2258.2) and the highest increase in SVI over control (108.3 %). In naturally infected seeds, the seed treatment with fungicides Carbendazim (50 % WP) @ 1.5 g/kg was found most effective with significantly highest seed germination (88.33 %) and having highest seedling vigour index (2010) and its maximum increase in SVI over control (46.71 %).