Management of Collar Rot Disease in Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) Caused by Aspergillus niger in Rajasthan Through Bio-control Agents

Background: Groundnut is an economically important edible oilseed crop. Groundnut suffers from seed, soil and foliar diseases. Among the groundnut diseases, collar rot is one of the economically important diseases. Collar rot is damaged regularly due to its seed and soil-borne nature. This disease is prevalent in almost all groundnut-growing states. Collar rot disease of groundnut is one of the most serious, destructive diseases and yield losses range from 13 to 52% and can be as high as 93.6% in some areas. Being mainly a soil-inhabiting pathogen, many environmental and soil factors are responsible for disease development. Methods: Field experiment was conducted for four years to find out effective control of collar rot of groundnut. Eight treatments including fungicides/bio agents along with control were laid in randomized block design with three replications. Efficacy of deep summer ploughing with mould board plough+Seed treatment with Tebuconazole followed by PGPR+Soil application of Trichoderma enriched in 250 kg FYM/ha at 35 and 80 DAS along with farmer practices as well as control was tested at ARS, Bikaner in RBD design during kharif season from 2017 to 2020 for management of collar rot diseases of groundnut. Result: The result of experiment revealed that deep summer ploughing with mould board plough+Soil application of Trichoderma @ 4 kg/ ha enriched in 250 kg FYM/ha+Seed treatment with Tebuconazole 2 DS @ 1.5 g/kg of seed followed by seed treatment with PGPR @ 625 g/ha of seed+Soil application of Trichoderma @ 4 kg/ha enriched in 250 kg FYM/ha at 35 and 80 DAS (T4) gave maximum germination (93.00%), minimum collar rot incidence (6.17%) and highest pod yield (4066.3 kg/ha) followed by deep summer ploughing with mould board plough+Seed treatment with Tebuconazole 2DS 1.5g/kg seed followed by PGPR @ 625 g/ha of seed+Soil application of Trichoderma @ 4 kg/ ha enriched in 250 kg FYM/ha at 35 and 80 DAS (T1) where germination (89.30%), collar rot (7.04%) and with pod yield (3661.9 kg/ha). All the treatment significantly were superior as compared to control, where minimum germination (82.00), maximum collar rot incidence (15.59 %) and minimum pod yield (2125.1 kg/ha) were recorded. As regard to ICBR, in different treatments, maximum ICBR ratio (1:20.68) was recorded in treatment consisting (T4): Deep summer ploughing with mould board plough+Seed treatment with Tebuconazole 1.5 g/kg seeds+Soil application of Trichoderma @ 4 kg/ha enriched in 250 kg FYM/ha at 35 and 80 DAS followed by treatment (T1).