Pathology and control of seed mycoflora of some vegetables in Kerala

Abstract

The survey of the seed mycoflora of certain vegetable seeds viz., amaranthus, bhindi, bittergourd brinjal, cowpea, cucumber, pumpkin, snakegourd and tomato revealed that storage fungi \\keAspargiflusflavus, Aspergil/us riiger and Rhizopus stolonifer were externally as well as internally seed-borne in a/most all the vegetable seeds taken for the study and were found to cause maximum inhibition in germination of the seeds, from which they were isolated. Seedling rotting was caused by Fusarium equiseti on amaranthus, Aspergillus niger on amaranthus and bhindi, Drechslera rostrata on cowpea, and Rhizopus stolonifer on tomato. In vitro evaluation of fungicides showed that Thiride was found to be superior to all other fungicides tested against the seed-borne fungi.