Isolation and evaluation of the efficacy of Fusarium oxysporum Schlecht. for biological control of Egyptian broomrape (Phelipanche aegyptiaca (Pers) Pomel. ) in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. )

Subject Areas : Weed Research Journal

Moslem Taghipour ¹ (Agrotechnology faculty ferdowsi faculty of mashhad)
Ghorbanali asadi ² (aAgrotechnology agriculture faculty ferdowsi university of mashhad)
Mehdi Rastgoo ³ (Department of Agrotechnology- Faculty of Agriculture - Ferdowsi University of Mashhad)
Mahmoodreza karimi shari ⁴ (Research center Agriculture and resorse natural Razavi Khorasan Plant Pathology group)

Received: 2021-12-05 Accepted : 2022-08-12 Published : 2023-02-20

Keywords: Orobanche management, Parasite plant, soil fungi, Host- range, Biological control,

Abstract :

AbstractThe use of soil fungi such as Fusarium is one of the strategies for controlling and managing parasitic plants. Accordingly, in order to evaluate the pathogenic potential, Fusariumoxysporum was isolated from the stems of infected plants of Phelipancheaegyptiaca and after identification, it was tested in a greenhouse using two treatments inoculated with fungal suspension. F. oxysporum and control treatment (no inoculation) were performed. In the inoculated treatment, fungal suspension with a concentration of 107 × 5 spores per ml, at a rate of 50 ml per pot and in the control treatment, tap water was used. Studied traits were including total number of parasite stems, number of parasite stems removed, number of diseased and dead parasite stems, number of healthy parasite stems, and number of flowering stems, number of parasite stems per plant, stem height of the parasite and the dry weight of Egyptian broomrape and tomato plants. The results of comparing the mean of the two treatments with t-test showed a significant difference in the dry weight of broomrape and tomato so that the mean dry weight of broomrape in the treatment inoculated with F. oxysporum (6 g), compared to the control treatment (16.84 g), was 2.8 times lower. Also, the highest dry weight of tomato (36.43 g) was observed in the inoculated treatment with F. oxysporum, which increased by 44.27% compared to the control with 25.25 g. In the host range test, none of the tested plants showed signs of persistent infection, including permanent wilting and necrosis. In general, the use of this fungus in the biological control of Egyptian broomrape could have an effect on all studied traits, reduce the dry weight of Egyptian broomrape and increase the dry matter of tomato.