EVALUATION OF TRICHODERMA ASPERELLUM BIOFORTIFIED WITH VERMI COMPOST AGAINST FUSARIUM OXYSPORUM F.SP. LYCOPERSICI

Morphological features are not adequate to accurately categorizedifferent species of the genus Trichoderma. Molecular characters, incombination with morphological characters, are used to identify Trichodermaat the species or subspecies level. The present study was focused oncharacterising Trichoderma asperellum based on morphology and molecularanalysis using genes such as ITS. Light microscopy results showed that Trichodermaasperellum regularly branched and typically paired conidiophores withstraight phialides and globose to subglobose shaped conidia Sequence similarityanalysis with reference T. asperellum isolates available in the NCBIdatabase showed 100 percent nucleotide similarity for ITS4 and ITS5. A dualculture test clearly showed that Trichoderma asperllum inhibited thetested fungal plant pathogen, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici(87.38 percent). Population dynamics of Trichoderma asperellum incompost were found to be stable until 21 days after mixing.