Biodiversity of Endophytic Fungi from Lowland Tomato Plants and Their Potential as Biological Control Agents for Anthracnose Disease in Chili Plants at Green House

Abstract

Anthracnose disease is one of important diseases of fruit crops that need to be controlled, influence of chili production in Indonesia, and cause significant yield loses of economic importance. Control of the disease until now using fungicides that have negative impact for the environment and the results have not been satisfactory. Based on that, alternative methods of control are studied. The control method is the use of endophytic fungi that isolated from tomato roots in the lowlands. The purpose of this study was to obtain candidates for endophytic fungi that could potentially be biological agents for controlling anthracnose disease. The stages of the research are antagonism test using dual culture method, identification, application suspension of endophytic fungi using root immersion method. Endophytic fungi be isolated from root lowland tomato plants (Jombang and Kediri) and was cultured on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) media to get pure culture so identified based on book Illustrated Genera of Imperfect Fungi by H. L. Barnett, Barry B. Hunter (1998). Chilli plants were inoculated with pathogens (Colletotrichum sp.) using spray techniques on leaves then endophytic fungi was applied. The identification results get Penicillium sp., Aspergillus sp., Fusarium sp., antagonistic test get 7 candidate isolates were able to inhibit the growth of Colletotrichum sp., and application suspension of endophytic fungi showed that J8 had highest potential to suppress anthracnose disease in chili plants at greenhouse (51.94%).