In-vitro bioefficacy of fungal antagonists against root rot of Pea caused by Rhizoctonia solani (Kuhn)

In-vitro effectiveness of various antagonistic fungi namely Aspergillus niger, A. flavus, Trichoderma koningii, T. atroviride, and T. harzianum were evaluated against Rhizoctonia solani by dual culture technique on potato dextrose agar. According to the observation recorded after 5 days, all the treatments were found to be superior over control (R. solani), but among all treatments A. niger was found to the most effective antagonist, with highest radial growth inhibition of the pathogen (77.01 percent), followed by A. flavus, T. harzianum and T. koningii i.e., 66.23, 64.42 and 62.20 percent. While as, T. atroviride was found to be the least effective one with minimum growth inhibition i.e., 42.21 percent. Whereas, at the same time control (R. solani) showed 100 percent radial growth and covered the whole Petri Plate within 5 days. All the bio-control agents were significantly effective to inhibit the sclerotia formation and development, except T. atroviride in which formation of sclerotia was recorded, while in all other treatments complete inhibition of sclerotia formation was recorded after 10 days of incubation.