Abstract
Soil borne fungi, Fusarium oxysporum, Macrophomina phaseolina and Rhizoctonia solani causes soil-borne root-rot disease in different chickpea varieties and cause heavy losses annually due to rapidly increased by many factors such as the presence of moisture, access irrigation and rainfall. We isolated fourteen soil-borne fungi Aspergillus flavus, A. niger, A. parasitica, A. terreus, Cladosporium cladosporioides, Curvularia lunata, Fusarium chlamydosporum, F. solani, F. oxysporum, Histoplasma capsulatum, Macrophomina phaseolina, Nigrospora sphaerica, Penicillium commune and Rhizoctonia solani from three different soil samples including grass growing area, Catharanthus roseus growing area and Aloe vera growing area. Among all isolates, A. flavus, N. sphaerica and C. cladosporioides were found to be dominant species that were present in all soil samples. In Pathogenicity test, F. oxysporum and R. solani showed maximum (%) disease intensity in sterilized soil as compared to unsterilized soil. However, the infection (%) of R. solani and M. phaseolina were maximum (%) in both sterilized and unsterilized soil. In antagonistic test, all isolates inhibited the growth of F. oxysporum, M. phaseolina and R. solani. Among these isolates, P. commune was found to be the most potent antagonist inhibiting the growth of all fungi. In contrast treatments were less effective against M. phaseolina as compared to the antagonists used in F. oxysporum and R. solani.
