Antagonistic potential of Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin against Pythium myriotylum causing damping off of tomato

Abstract

Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin, a white muscardine fungus has widely drawn attention of crop protection practitioners as potential biocontrol agent against insect-pests since decades. In the present study, antagonistic potential of 22 native of B. bassiana isolates were evaluated against damping-off disease of tomato caused by Pythium sp. Results showed that all B. bassiana isolates were able to inhibit mycelial growth of P. myriotylum to the extent of 68–82%. Further studies were conducted to understand the ability of screened B. bassiana isolates to produce cell wall degrading enzymes (CWDEs) viz., amylase, caesinase, chitinase, cellulase, lipase and protease respectively. The potential B. bassiana isolates showed dynamic colonization efficiency in tomato plants with colonization percentage (%) as high as 72–80% through seed inoculation. Eventually, potential isolate BP1.1 has showed wide pH tolerance ability ranging from pH 6–10. Further, potential isolate B. bassiana BP1.1 was evaluated for their efficacy against damping off of tomato under in vitro condition yielding higher germination percentage of 87.34% of and lower disease incidence up to 33.45% under treatment combinations. These findings provide substantial evidences on multifarious potential of B. bassiana as antagonist as well as plant growth promoter in addition to a potential entomopathogen, thus paves the way of a newer domain in the arena of crop protection.