Journal of Plant Disease Sciences

Temperatures, pH and media (solid and liquid) had a significant influence on the growth and sporulation on T.atroviride as evident from the data. The most favourable temperature for growth and sporulation of T.atroviride was found in between 25–30°C (240–260 mg dry wt.), followed by 40°C where average growth of the bioagent was recorded as 60.00 mg dry wt. of mycelium. Similarly, most favourable pH ranges between 7.0 to 7.5 in which total dry weight of mycelium also varies between 0.97 to 1.07mg. Among the different media, PDA shows excellent in average colony diameter (8.21cm), but excellent average mycelium weight (175.45mg) was recorded in PDB medium followed by Rose Bengal Agar (7.96cm). Shelf life of T. atroviride in three different carrier materials viz. talc, lignite and charcoal was determined at every 30 days interval of time and the result indicated that decline in the number of propagules was started from 30 days onwards. Among the different formulations, talc based was found the best material to retain maximum number of viable propagules, which was 16.3 x 10⁶ cfu/g against 6.2 x 10⁶ cfu/g in charcoal powder at 60 days of storage. It has also found that the bioagent can retain their viability upto 120 days in all the cases.