Abstract Introduction P. florida is one of the edible fungi in the genus Pleurotus that have been shown to produce toxins with nematotoxicity. Realizing the importance of managing one of the most important plant-parasitic nematodes, Meloidogyne incognita in an ecofriendly way, P. florida has been studied in detail.Methods The methods included obtaining and preparing the nematode inoculum. P. florida was isolated on Potato dextrose agar media and culture filtrate (cfP) was prepared from it to study the interaction between second-stage juveniles and cultural filtrate of Pleurotus florida (cfP) in vitro. Interaction between second-stage juveniles and P. florida was also studied in culture medium. Urtica dioica green manure was prepared under greenhouse conditions. In vitro test was done to assess the compatibility of Urtica dioica with P. florida before evaluating the combined effect of Spent Mushroom Substrate (SMS) of P. florida and U. dioica green manure (GM) on the population of M. incognita under glasshouse condition.Results The immobilization of second-stage juveniles (J2) by the fungus P. florida was found inversely proportional to the time period of incubation. Whereas, the trapping of J2 by the fungus P. florida and the time period of incubation was found directly proportional. It was found that the paralysis of J2 decreased with the increase in dilutions of cultural filtrate. The overall increase in growth parameters of tomato and decrease in reproduction parameters of M. incognita was found in the treatment where 60g GM and 100g SMS was used per 2 kg of nematode infested soil.Conclusion The findings revealed that P. florida is nematophagous and its spent mushroom substrate could be useful for M. incognita biocontrol. M. incognita population in the soil can be reduced drastically when used with other soil amendments and hence U. dioica, a common weed can be used as a green manure crop which improves the efficacy of P. florida.
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