Inoculum levels of Sclerotium rolfsii on the incidence of stem rot in tomato

摘要

Stem rot of tomato caused by Sclerotium rolfsii is a serious disease in tomato leading to more than 30 per cent crop loss. The pathogen survives in the form of sclerotia for several years. Various factors like type of inoculum, it age, method of inoculation and environmental conditions influence the quantity of inoculum to cause successful infection in any host pathogen interaction. Hence an experiment was conducted to find out the inoculum levels of S. rolfsii to cause successful infection in tomato.