Management of tomato buckeye rot and Alternaria leaf spot through strobilurin fungicide

摘要

In mid hills of Himachal Pradesh, the fruiting period of tomato coincides with the onset of monsoon rains and consequently, the crop is severely infected with buckeye fruit rot (Phytophthora nicotianae B. de Hann. var. parasitica (Dastur Waterhouse) and alternaria leaf spot (Alternaria solani (Ell. And Mart) Jones and Grout) which causes significant yield losses. Under high humidity and good rainfall conditions, the incidence of buckeye rot alone may go upto 90 per cent (Gupta and Thind, 2006). Though these diseases can be kept under check with elaborate chemical spray programme (Shyam and Gupta, 1996) but the cost involved is very high besides pollution hazards. Keeping in view the destructiveness of these diseases and importance of ecofriendly management of diseases, present studies were conducted to evaluate strobilurin fungicide azoxystrobin which is ecofriendly and safe to use (Jensen, 1997) alone and its combination with other EBI fungicide difenoconazole against these diseases under field conditions.