Efficacy of foliar fungicides on controlling early blight disease of Eggplant, under laboratory and greenhouse conditions

Abstract

Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) production has gone through increasing difficulties due to relatively low yields in the last few years in Iraq. Alternaria solani, the causal agent of eggplant early blight; attacks hybrid and local varieties either in open field or in the greenhouse, causing a serious damage that led to decrease in crop yield. The strategies employed to manage this disease by Iraqi farmers were the synthetic fungicides application. In this study, several assays were conducted such as poisoned food technique (in vitro assay) and greenhouse experiment (in vivo assay); to evaluate the inhibitory efficacy of 3 three synthetic fungicides including; Topas® 100 (penconazole), Tilt 250 (propiconazole) and Leimay® (amisulbrom) on A. solani mycelial growth and disease intensity. In laboratory assays, Topas® 100 and Tilt 250 exhibited high inhibitory activities against A. solani as an airborne pathogen; recording mycelial inhibition rate above 94 % at a concentration of 1000 mg\ l. Furthermore, these two fungicides when applied preventively in greenhouse assays reduced significantly the disease severity index (DSI) by 18.83 % and 26.16 %, respectively. Current results revealed that Topas® 100 and Tilt 250 caused the highest antifungal potential manifested through reduction rate of fresh weight (9.62 and 8.58 g, respectively), and dry weight (4.61 and 4.60 g, respectively). Moreover, both fungicides recorded the highest peroxidase activities of 4.128 units/g/ml/min. and 3.038 units/g/ml/min., respectively. Current findings can be used to assist the eggplant growers to improve the control of early blight disease, and increase the marketable yields of this crop.

The Efficiency of Fungicides on Fungal Growth Inhibition in Cultured Tissues of Banana (Musa acominata), and Their Effect on Tissues Traits

“…However, contamination problems, particularly fungal contamination, have recently increased due to a lack of appropriate pesticides to eliminate them. This is due to a number of factors, the most important of which are fungal resistance to chemical pesticides and the spread of fungal pesticides with numerous trade names that are incapable of controlling all of the fungi that cause contamination [16][17][18]. The use of pesticides to prevent contamination in tissue farms should be based on a prior study to choose the best pesticides in terms of their impact without affecting the plants.…”

Evaluation of the Biological Control Agent’s Efficiency Against the Causal Agent of Early Blight of Solanum melongena

“…Worldwide annual economic yield losses due to early blight have been estimated around 35-78% decrease in yield. Early blight disease can occur and survive over a varied range of certain climatic conditions but it is most dominant in areas with high rainfall, dew and very high relative humidity (El-Debaiky, 2018;Matrood & Rhouma, 2021a).…”