Abstract
Tomato are used both in as fresh and semi cooked form, therefore, pesticides residues neither accepted nor allowed by stakeholders. Plant resistance inducers (PRIs) or elicitors have shown promising potential to be an effective but safe alternate of pesticides. In this study, we investigated the role of different PRIs against Altenaria solani, causal of agent of early blight of tomato. PRIs used in this study were 0.1 mM methyl Jasmonate (MeJA), 1.0 mM salicylic acid (SA), 1mg/ml chitosan (CH). In addition, 0.2 mM sodium nitroprusside (SNP) and 1mg/pot calcium carbide (CaC2) were also used as donors of nitric oxide (NO) and ethylene (ET) respectively. A. solani was isolated from infected tomato samples which were collected from suburbs of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Pathogenicity was confirmed by Koch’s postulates. Post 48 hrs of priming with PRIs, tomato seedlings were then sprayed by A. solani inoculum. Plants treated with distil water were considered as mock treatment whereas challenged with pathogen as a positive control. Disease symptoms recorded 10 days post inoculation (dpi). MeJA treatment gave the best result as we got percentage of EB index (PEBI) 14.15% compared to positive control (44.98%). Plants treated with CaC2 which is donor of ET and CH gave statistically non-significant results compared to MeJA while gave significant results compared to SA and positive control. Overall, resistant inducers delayed the disease and make the plants tolerant rather immune against the pathogen. Our data imply that there is potential of activating innate immunity in tomato against one of most destructive and widely distributed pathogens by the application of PRIs.
Published Version
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