Field evaluation of integrated approaches for managing Fusarium wilt of chickpea

Introduction

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is among the earliest cultivated legumes, originating over 7,500 years ago in the Middle East, and ranks as the third most important Rabi pulse crop globally after dry beans and peas. It is predominantly grown under rainfed conditions in diverse soils and is widely cultivated in the dry regions of the Indian subcontinent, which contributes nearly 90% of global chickpea production (Juan et al., 2000) [5] . Chickpea is an important source of human food and animal feed due to its high lysine-rich protein content and is consumed in various forms such as dhal, vegetables, soups and snacks, while its by-products are used as livestock feed (Jukanti et al., 2012) [6] . India, Australia, and Pakistan are the major producers, contributing 67.32%, 6.19%, and 5.72% of global production, respectively (Jendoubi et al., 2017) [4] . Chickpea productivity is constrained by both biotic and abiotic stresses, particularly diseases caused by fungal pathogens. The crop is attacked by nearly 172 pathogens worldwide, with the highest diversity reported from India (Nene et al., 1996) [13] . Major fungal diseases include Fusarium wilt, collar rot, dry root rot, Ascochyta blight, and Botrytis gray mold. Among these, soil-borne pathogens such as Fusarium oxysporum F. sp. ciceris, Sclerotium rolfsii, and Macrophomina phaseolina are the most destructive, causing plant mortality ranging from 10 to 100%. Fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum F. sp. ciceris (Foc) is the most prevalent disease in India (McKerral, 1923) [11] and a major constraint to chickpea productivity (Haware and Nene, 1982; Hossain et al., 2013) [2,3] . Disease incidence ranges from 14 to 32% across Indian states, with yield losses of 10-15% and up to 100% under favorable conditions (Cortes et al., 2000; Warda et al., 2017) [5,17] . Management is challenging due to the soil-borne nature of the pathogen and limitations of chemical control, necessitating integrated, sustainable and eco-friendly disease management approaches that combine organic matter, non-conventional chemicals and PGPR-based bioagents (Landa et al., 2004; Kumar et al., 2020) [10,8] .

Materials and Methods

A field experiment was conducted during Rabi 2018-19 and 2019-2020 at the College Farm, Agricultural College, Bapatla, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh. The treatments were seed treatment of Trichoderma isolate T19001 (T 1 ), Panchagavya 10% (T 2 ), Beejamrutha 10% (T 3 ), Beejaraksha 6% (T 4 ), T 1 + T 2 (T 5 ), T 1 + T 3 (T 6 ), T 1 + T 4 (T 7 ), Tebuconazole (T 8 ) and Control (T 9 ). The seeds were soaked in biorational solution i.e., 10% panchagavya or beejamrutha for 20 min and shade dried. Beejaraksha powder was added @ 6 g per kg of seed and mixed. For Trichoderma seed treatment, seeds were mixed with 0.1% carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC) then, the spore suspension of Trichoderma was sprinkled, mixed and shade dried. For combinations, the seeds were initially soaked in biorational and shade dried then, they were treated with 0.1% CMC and sprinkled the Trichoderma spore suspension and shade dried. The spore concentration of Trichoderma was adjusted to 10 8 cfu/ml using a haemocytometer (Whitehead, 1957) [18] . All the treatments were imposed on the same day of sowing and observations were recorded on germination per cent, plant stand, number of wilted plants and disease incidence (%). Observations on yield parameters like number of pods per plant, number of grains per plant, root length, shoot length, 100-seed weight and grain yield per plant were recorded.

Results and Discussion

During evaluation of field experiments conducted in Rabi 2018 and 2019-2020, the incidence of the three major soil borne diseases caused by S. rolfsii, Foc and M. phaseolina were observed on the basis of symptoms and in vitro isolations. Throughout the crop growing period, occurrences of all the soil borne pathogens were recorded at periodic intervals of 15 days and samples were collected from field for in vitro isolations. Among the treatments that were tested, seed treatment with tebuconazole was found to be effective. During Rabi 2018-19, disease incidences of S. rolfsii, Foc and M. phaseolina were least in tebuconazole treated plants with 1.6%, 11.7% and 0.9% disease incidence respectively. Among biorationals, Panchagavya in combination with Trichoderma was found effective after fungicidal check with 4.0%, 20.8% and 2.6% disease incidences respectively against control (13.0%, 38.9% and 8.5%). During Rabi 2019-2020 also, tebuconazole seed treatment was found effective in controlling all three pathogens (1.7%, 32.9% and 3.8%) followed by Trichoderma + panchagavya treatment (2.1%, 37.0% and 5.1%) over control (10.3%, 53.3% and 15.0%). Among biorationals, panchagavya had a beneficial effect on Trichoderma followed by Trichoderma alone. Beejaraksha and beejamrutha had a negative influence on Trichoderma (Table 1). In pooled analysis, tebuconazole treated plants were found effective in controlling all the three diseases. Except chemical fungicide, the combination of Trichoderma with Panchagavya showed least disease incidence (35.9%) of all three diseases and panchagavya has increased the efficacy of Trichoderma in controlling the diseases. The disease incidence was found high in beejamrutha alone treated plants (60.7%) over control (69.5%), (Table 1). Among all the treatments, germination was found to be nonsignificant during Rabi 2018-19 and 2019-2020. Plant stand at harvest was affected due to wilt complex and plant stand% was found to be higher in tebuconazole seed treatment (93.2% and 84.1%) over control (74.7% and 68.4%) during Rabi 2018-19 and 2019-2020 (Table 2). Mortality was highest in beejamrutha alone and beejaraksha alone with or without Trichoderma. Beejamrutha and beejaraksha were not effective and even found to decrease the efficacy of Trichoderma when used in combination with Trichoderma (Table 2). It may be noted here that in vitro experiments revealed highly compatible nature of Trichoderma and beejamrutha in comparison with beejaraksha and panchagavya. Further, inhibition effect of panchagavya was more on Foc when compared to the same by beejamrutha and beejaraksha. Thus, it may be presumed that panchagavya acted better against Foc, while Trichoderma sustained better under natural soil due to dissipation of inhibitory effect of panchagavya which further helped in sustenance of Trichoderma over panchagavya as carbon source. 4 and Figure 1). Thus, it may be interpreted that in the present chickpea wilt complex system, neither biorationals nor Trichoderma when applied either alone or in integration were found effective as chickpea plant growth promoters, as there is no significant difference in yield parameters. Hence, increase in yield is totally attributed to the plant stand. Values with similar alphabets do not differ significantly, Net plot area= 6.24 sq.m, Yield/ha conversion factor= 1602.6 [7] . Shubha (2014) [15] studied the effect of seed treatment, panchagavya application and organic farming systems on growth and yield of Maize. Maximum yield of 19.90 q/ha was recorded in seed treatment with Panchagavya (3%) followed by beejamrutha (17.99 q/ha) and minimum grain yield of 16.90 q/ha was recorded in control. Organic amendments are being recommended as biological means to reduce the incidence of several soil borne plant pathogens. Amendments of soil with organic materials have tremendous effect on enhancing the chickpea yield as it reduces the incidence of Fusarium wilt up to a considerable level (Patra et al., 2017) [14] . Similar results of integrated management of Fusarium wilt were observed by Yang et al. (2011) [19] , Hossain et al. (2013) [3] , Kumar (2017) [9] , Kumar et al. (2020) [8] , Nandeesha and Huilgol, 2021 [12] and Vikas et al. (2024) [16] .

Conclusion

Among different treatments tested under field conditions against chickpea wilt complex, with special reference to Fusarium wilt, T 19001+ Panchagavya (10%) seed treatment resulted in best control and was on par with fungicide (Tebuconazole seed treatment) with an yield (1100 kg/ha) and B:C ratio 1.66. Hence, the adoption of integrated disease management approaches is strongly recommended for effective and sustainable management of Fusarium wilt in chickpea.

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