Management of Early Blight Disease of Potato Caused by Alternaria solani through Optimization of Chemical Fungicides

Abstract

Early blight of potato is caused by Alternaria solani, which causes major yield losses in most of the potato growing areas in the world. For effective management of this disease early diagnosis is important, and there is a need for evaluation of suitable chemical fungicides and bio-control agents for management of early blight disease of potato to reduce the disease severity and to increased yield. Chemical control method is an effective and highly adopted approach of eliminating disease causing organism. The present study was carried out to assess the ‘Management of Early Blight disease of Potato caused by Alternaria solani through optimization of chemical fungicides’. Among five systemic fungicides and two bio-agents with control evaluated under field condition, 8.61 percent maximum disease reduction percent were observed in treatment at 0.15 percent concentration in treatment T3 (Carbendazim 12% + Mancozeb 63 % WP) which were significantly superior to over control and in all other four treatment of fungicides were found similar disease reduction percent with minor difference between 11.04 to 17.52 percent, and maximum 20.21 percent antagonistic activity were assessed in  Pseudomonas fluorescens against Alternaria solani and all observations were mentioned in the result of the paper