Abeer Ghanem(1) and Walid Naffaa(1)*
(1) Damascus University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Plant Protection, Damascus,
(*Corresponding author: Dr. Walid Naffaa, E-mail: walid1851966@yahoo.com)
Received: 16/ 09/ 2021 Accepted: 7/12/ 2021
Abstract
This study was carried out in Kom Al-Hasa nursery in Sweida governorate. The aims of this study were: (i) determining the primary inoculum source of Fusarium solani, the cause of pistachio seedling death, (ii) testing the effectiveness of some chemical and biological control methods. The results showed that the pistachio seeds are the main source of infection, where the disease incidence was 42.86% when using unsterilized seeds obtained from the nursery, while there weren’t any infected plants in all treatments which not subjected to artificial infection. The infection by F. solani significantly reduced the average of plant height, vegetative weight and root weight compared to the control under artificial infection conditions. On the other hand, the efficacy of pistachio seed treatment with Carbendazim and Thiophanate – methyl (Topsin) fungicides and spore suspension of Trichoderma harzianum in reducing the disease incidence was 83.71%, 45.69% and 38.89% respectively. Treatment with Trichoderma and Carbenazim significantly increased the studied growth parameters, while treatment with Thiophanate – methyl did not have any positive effect on plant growth.
Key words: Fusarium solani, pistachio, nurseries, inoculum source, control.
Full paper in Arabic: pdf