Abstract
Food legumes such as grains and pulses are considered essential foods in most tropical and subtropical countries. Plant pathogens cause serious problems for the growth and survival of grain and pulse crops and there has been an estimated 44% loss in yield of these plants due to the diseases caused by plant pathogens. Macrophomina phaseolina is a soil borne fungus that causes charcoal rot disease. This fungal species persists in the form of small and black sclerotia dispersed in the soil because it does not survive in its mycelial state for more than 7 days. M. phaseolina can infect several hundred of plant species belonging to over 100 plant families. In Pakistan, M. phaseolina infection has been reported on more than 67 economically important plant species. The infection caused by M. phaseolina is difficult to control because of organism’s thick wall hyphal mat and its sclerotia. However, there have been many attempts focusing on to reduce the fungal population by reducing the number of sclerotia in soil or to minimize the contact between host and inoculum. There are other approaches to modulate this soil-borne fungus population are fumigation, adding organic amendments, maintenance of high soil moisture content, solarization and the application of antagonists and fungicides.
