Integrated Management of Collar Rot of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) Caused by Sclerotium rolfsii under Greenhouse Conditions

Collar rot, one of the major soil borne diseases of chickpea incited by Sclerotium rolfsii causes significant economic losses in chickpea crop. The present study was undertaken to identify the eco-friendly management of this soil borne disease in chickpea. In this study, the efficacy of chemical, biocontrol and biofumigation to manage the chickpea collar rot disease was tested under Greenhouse conditions. Our results revealed that the treatments involving the sole application of chemical fungicide Tebuconazole 60 FS (as seed treatment or soil application) or in combination with other treatments resulted in 100% germination of chickpea seeds. Two treatments namely T5 (SA of Tebuconazole 60 FS) and T12 (ST with Tebuconazole and SA of mustard seed cake) recorded 0.00% total mortality and hence found to be highly effective in protecting chickpea seeds from both pre emergence seed rot and post emergence seedling mortality.The results on the percent disease incidence revealed that, T10 (ST with Trichoderma spp and SA of mustard seed cake) provided maximum disease reduction of 81.93 per cent (PDI 12.04%) and 75.93 (PDI 24.07% ) per cent over the control at 30 and 45 DAS respectively. This was followed by Treatment T7 which exhibited 72.22 % (PDI 18.52%) and 69.45 % (PDI 30.55%) disease reduction over the control at 30 and 45 DAS respectively. Overall, the results of our study (considering both germination and percent disease incidence percentages), revealed that T7 (ST and SA of Trichoderma spp.) was the most effective treatment in managing the collar rot disease of chickpeas.