Efficacy of Trichoderma against Sclerotium rolfsii causing collar rot disease of lentil under in vitro conditions

Three biocontrol agents viz., Trichoderma viride, T. virens and T. harzianum were evaluated to test the antagonism against Sclerotium rolfsii under in vitro conditions. All the three antagonists’ viz., T. viride, T. virens and T. harzianum have shown the potential of parasitizing the growth of Sclerotium rolfsii in vitro. The rate of inhibition was fastest in T. harzianum (63.60%) followed by T virens (51.5 %). Least inhibition was recorded in T. viride (50.85% ) after 72 hours of incubation. However, T. viride showed the highest (91.31%) reduction in sclerotia formation followed by T. harzianum (84.92%) and T. virens (84.29%) after 15 days of incubation. The volatile compounds from Trichoderma viride were found most effective in suppressing the mycelial growth (51.11%) and sclerotia production (95.90%) of the target pathogen. The culture filtrate from both T. harzianum and T. viride (15% concentration) was found very effective in inhibiting the radial growth (57.46 and 49.62%) and sclerotia formation (98.20 and 99.83%) of Sclerotium rolfsii. The antagonists such as T. harzianum and T. viride can be used as a bio-control agent against S. rolfsii under field condition

Bio-efficacy of Trichoderma species against Pigeonpea wilt pathogen

Three biocontrol agent viz., Trichoderma viride, Trichoderma virens and Trichoderma harzianum were evaluated to test the antagonism against Fusarium udum under in vitro conditions. All the three biocontrol agents have the potential of parasitizing the growth of Fusarium udum in vitro. The rate of parasitism was found fastest in T. viride (61.12% over growth in 96 hrs) than T. virens and T. harzianum. The volatile compounds from Trichoderma viride suppressed the mycelial growth of Fusarium udum by 43.13% and found effective when compared to Tricho-derma virens and Trichoderma harzianum. Non-volatile compounds or culture filtrate from Trichoderma virens at 15% concentration shows complete mycelial inhibition of the test fungi. The antagonist T. virens was chosen to be the most promising bio-control agent for F. udum

Elucidating genetic diversity and variability in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) using yield attribution traits

Fifty-six desi chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) advance breeding lines were evaluated in order to explore the possibility of genetic divergence for yield and its contributing traits using Mahalanobis’s D2 Statistics and Principal Component Analysis. High estimates of heritability, genetic advance, GCV and PCV were recorded for seed yield per plant (92.2%, 12.4%, 37.1% and 38.7%), biological yield per plant (88.1%, 21.9%, 29.1% and 31.0%) and harvest index (87.3%, 25.0%, 22.7% and 24.3%). All the test genotypes were sort into five discrete clusters. Biological yield/plant (23.5%), days to maturity (17.3%), harvest index (14.6%), seed yield/plant (11.3%), total number of pods/plant (7.4%) and 100 seed weight (6.49%) were found to have highest percentage contributions to genetic diversity in the present research. The first six principal components (PC1 19.7%, PC 16.2%, PC3 11.2%, PC4 9.69%, PC5 7.2% and PC6 6.69%) could explain 70.68% of the total of the interaction variation and have Eigen value more than one.  Genotypes JG 2016-1411, JG 2016-9605, JG 2017-46, ICCV 16105, ICCV 16109, ICCV 16112 and ICCV 16116 were present in more than one PCs hence contributed maximum towards yield and can be used in various breeding programmes for yield improvement.