Interaction between Meloidogyne javanica and Macrophomina phaseolina on lentil

Abstract

Lentil is an important and widely grown pulse crop in Northern India. During a survey of lentil crops in the Dadri area along Aligarh-Delhi sector of G.T. Road, certain fields were found to be badly damaged; the roots of affected plants were galled and had dark patches on them. Examination of the infected roots in the laboratory revealed the presence of the root-rot fungus, Macrophomina phaseolina (Maubl.) Ashby. while egg-laying females of the root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne javanica (Treub) Chitwood were found in the galls. Although the association of these two pathogens has been reported on Ligustrum japonicum (Alfieri and Stokes, 1971) and on kenaf (Tu and Cheng, 1971), there is no information about their association on lentil. The pres~t study was carried out to evaluate the possible interactIOn between these organisms and the resulting effect on the growth of lentil.