Abstract
Tomato cultivation in Nigeria and around the world is seriously threatened by disease infection. Soilless cultivation and gene engineering are modern innovations used worldwide to ensure production of quality disease-free vegetables; yet annual crop loss still persists. In 2011, a commercial vegetable farm in Apẹtẹ, Ibadan, Nigeria was totally ravaged by a fleet of disease infection. 36 infected tomato samples were annihilated from 6 cultivars for laboratory analysis. Crude plant extracts were employed as treatments. The test plants were arranged in 4 × 3 × 2 × 3 × 3 (experimental plots) and 4 × 3 × 3 (control plot) layouts. The tomato plants were basically infected by fungal diseases. The disease symptoms were totally eradicated by the applied botanicals (100% healthy tomato plants). There was an appreciable increase in plant heights of the treated tomato plants (30.9 cm, 30.2 cm, 27.5 cm and 26.5 cm respectively) compared to those in the control plots (24.1 cm, 22.3 cm, 23.3 cm and 18.6 cm, respectively). The results obtained so far showed that plant extracts was an effective alternative for the systemic and hazardous chemicals used in tomato plant disease management.
Highlights
Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Synonym: Solanum lycopersici) is a vegetable crop with high vitamin A, vitamin C, Lycopene, and potassium content [1]
The experiment conducted showed that 15% conc. of plant extracts (Mangifera indica and Jatropha curcas) totally inhibited the radial mycelia growth of Aspergillus sclerotirium from the beginning of the assay at Day 1 (1.7 ± 0.05 and 1.7 ± 0.24 cm, respectively), through Day 3 (3.2 ± 0.38 and 3.8 ± 1.12 cm, respectively), to Day 5
The radial mycelia growth of A. sclerotirium, A. glaucus and A. terreus were totally inhibited by the application of 30% concentration of the botanicals (Table 2)
Summary
Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Synonym: Solanum lycopersici) is a vegetable crop with high vitamin A, vitamin C, Lycopene, and potassium content [1]. It has been reported that the control of pathogens on both stored and cultivated tomato was achieved by the use of pesticides [2], Research conducted in recent years have shown that most of these pesticides contain harmful chemicals (or heavy metals) that are either systemic or hazardous, causing long term harmful effects on both plants and animals [3] This is as a result of bioaccumulation of heavy metals in the treated plants to form lethal doses, which are further transferred by consumption to the tissues and organs of primary, secondary or tertiary consumers that feed on these treated plants directly or indirectly
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