BIOMANAGEMENT OF CITRUS NEMATODE TYLENCHULUS SEMIPENETRANS COBB ON LEMON, CITRUS LIMONIA L.

Abstract

ABSTRACT An experiment was conducted on a nine - year old citrus, Citrus limonia L. garden affected with citrus nematode Tylenchulus semipenetrans heavily to evaluate the biocontrol potential of Pseudomonas fluorescens, Trichoderma viride, T. harzianum and Pochonia chlamydosporia in the management of citrus nematode. The above bioagents were inoculated in talc formulation at a depth of 20-30 cm and 120 cm away from the trunk of the tree and compared with carbofuran 3G (100g/tree) as chemical check and untreated control. Observations were made on citrus nematode population and fruit yield one year after the delivery of the above test bioagents. The observations revealed that all the bioagents are effective to reduce the citrus nematode population and to increase the fruit yield of Citrus limonia L. Among them the use of P. fluorescens available commercially as talc formulation @ 20g/tree is most effective to reduce T. semipenetrans population (71.49 %) and to increase the fruit yield three fold compared to untreated control.