Studies on Seed Borne mycoflora of selected Vegetables and their Biocontrol

Abstract

nutrients including potassium, fiber, foliate and vitamins A, B and C. Vegetable are newlinepacked full of goodness in the daily diet have been strongly associated with reduced newlinerisk for some forms of cancer, heart disease, stroke and other chronic diseases. Annually newlinewe produce about 175 million tons of vegetable from an area of 10.3 million ha., newlinecontributing 13.4% to world production (Horticulture statistics at a glance, 2017) newlineVegetables are important source of farm income because, vegetables give more newlineyields per unit area per unit time than cereals and other crops. Vegetable production newlineprovides a promising economic opportunity for reducing rural poverty and unemployment newlinein developing countries and is a key component of farm diversification newlinestrategies. Increasing vegetable production with respond to their demand creates newlineimportant economic opportunities for small stockholder farmers. newlineThe Marathwada region is well known for its hot summer and dryness throughout the newlineyear except during the monsoon. In Marathwada region, Latur district dominantly newlinesuffers from heavy drought, this ultimately affecting the agriculture to a considerable newlineextent. Therefore, vegetable cultivation, their production and buying provide quick newlineeconomic source to farmers, because it is possible in small field area and with limited newlineirrigation facilities. newlineHowever, during vegetable cultivation, farmers faced a big problem i.e. most of newlinevegetables are highly susceptible to diseases in the growing phase and most of them are newlineseed borne. To control disease causing pathogens, farmers often uses pesticides newlineexcessively to reduce the economic risks. Seed borne fungal diseases are major biotic newlineconstraints to seeds. This study was undertaken to determine identification and newlineincidence of seed borne fungal disease agents on seeds of selected vegetables and newlineintegrated seed health management, which were collected from different part of Latur newlinedistrict of Maharashtra. newlineUsing agar plate and blotter paper method as recommended by ISTA, the seed newlineborne mycoflora of six commercial