In Vitro Evaluation of Ethano-Botanically Important Plant Extracts against Early Blight Disease (Alternaria Solani ) of Tomato

The Tomato (Lycoperiscum esculantum) is a diploid species with 2n=24 chromosomes and belongs to the family Solanaceae. It is the world’s largest vegetable crop after potato. The area under tomato in India is about 4.97 lakh hectares with a production of about 86 lakh tons. Early blight is caused by the fungus Alternaria solani Sorauer. This disease in severe cases can lead to complete defoliation and is most damaging on tomato in regions with heavy rainfall, high humidity and fairly high temperatures (24oC-29oC). A. solani is characterized by septate beaked muriform conidia borne singly on simple conidiophore, In the present study Ten locally available plants which are ethano-botanically important are selected viz., Amaranthus caudatus, Anacardium occidentale, Azadirachta indica, Bambusa arundinacea , Capsicum annuum, Ecballium elaterium, Eucalyptus gobules, Ficus religiosa , Lantana camara and Morus alba aquoes and thier extracts were evaluated against A. solani by poison food technique. The results revealed that leaf and seed extracts of A.indica recorded maximum mycelial inhibition with 78.83% followed by L. camara with 59.9% and E. globules with 59.7% inhibition in mycelial growth and B. arundinacea exhibited least mycelial inhibition with 3.7%