Efficacy of botanicals on soybean seed-borne Fusarium equiseti.

Soybean is one of the most important oilseed crops cultivated in India. A large number of fungi have been reported to be associated with soybean seeds and few of them are pathogenic. These pathogenic fungi are known to cause seed and seedling diseases at early plant growth stages and many other diseases. The objective of this work was to study the efficacy of the solvent extract of botanicals on seed-borne Fusarium equiseti isolated form soybean seed variety (JS-335). F. equiseti are associated with soybean seed-borne diseases such as seed rot, root rot, wilting, blight pod, collar rot and sudden death syndrome. Out of the eight botanicals screened few of the botanicals showed promising activity, among them Emblica officinalis fruit extract showed the most effective activity against F. equiseti. These natural products may be alternatives to chemicals fungicides and provide an easy method to store soybean seed for long period