COMPARATIVE APPRAISEMENT OF SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS, PHYTOCHEMICALS AND HOST RESISTANCE TOWARDS FUSARIUM MONILIFORME CAUSING STALK ROT OF MAIZE

Stalk rot of maize is one of the most important emerging threat to the successful production of Pakistan. It causes 10-40% yield losses which may reach up to 100% due to conducive conditions in some areas of country. Current research effort was made to cope with stalk rot of maize caused by Fusarium moniliforme (Fm) through synthetic chemicals, botanical extracts and source of resistance. Disease samples of maize were collected from Faisalabad regions to isolate pathogenic fungus. Screening of ten varieties (Gohar-19, Sahiwal Gold, Malka-2016, FH-1046, YH-5427, Pearl, DK-6317 MMRI, AS-5101, and DK-9108) was done. Among these varieties, YH-5427 expressed highly resistance response. By using poisoned food technique, five synthetic chemicals (Tilt, Belanty, Forum-Top, Cabrio-Top, and Enervin Duo) and eight phytochemicals (Azadirachta indica, Allium sativum, Eucalyptus globulus, Zingiber officinale, Ficus benjamina, Cinnamomum tamala, Mentha piperita and Moringa olerifas) were evaluated against Fm at three different concentrations (50, 100, 150ppm) and (3, 5 and 7%) respectively under lab conditions. Among all tested treatments, tilt and moringa showed significant results under lab conditions and further investigated under field conditions alone and in combination against stalk rot of maize. Minimum disease incidence was expressed by Tilt + Moringa (9.69%) in integration followed by Tilt (16.78%) and Moringa (30.89%) as compared to control. Lab and field experiments were conducted under Complete Randomized Design (CRD) and Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) respectively. To observe the difference among the treatments towards maize stalk rot, least significant difference (LSD) was used at 0.05 % probability level.