Influence of Some Bioagents and Chitosan Nanoparticles on Controlling Maize Late Wilt and Improving Plants Characteristics

El-Gazzar, Nashwa; El-Bakery, Amal M.; Ata, Abed A.

doi:10.21608/ejp.2018.115896

Influence of Some Bioagents and Chitosan Nanoparticles on Controlling Maize Late Wilt and Improving Plants Characteristics

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Zagazig University, Zagazig, 44519, Egypt.

² Maize and Sugar Crops Diseases Research Department., Plant Pathology Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt.

10.21608/ejp.2018.115896

Abstract

The high environmental risks of fungicides were a reason for encouraging biological control and its biofactors and recommending its use in the field of plant diseases. Chitosan NPs, Trichoderma viride and mycorrhizae (Glomus mosseae) are one of those factors that have been used in this study separately or in combination to control maize late wilt caused by Cephalosporium maydis. The experiments were conducted during seasons 2017 and 2018 in a greenhouse and infested fields at the Agric. Res. Stat. of Gemmieza. Tested treatments showed a significant decrease in the incidence of late wilt compared to untreated control in either greenhouse or field trials. In this regard, the treatment with chitosan NPs was the best when combined with the mycorrhizae (VAM) which gave the highest effect in controlling late wilt in the greenhouse and field trials followed by treatment with chitosan NPs+ T. viride in addition to the positive effect on plant growth parameters compared to the other treatments. Experiments have also showed that using of T. viride with mycorrhizae together in one treatment led to a law effect on disease control, although their use each alone has a great effect on disease control and improving plant growth. The data also showed that the association of mycorrhizae with maize plants was significantly affected by the infection by C. maydis, in addition to an increase in the activities of peroxidase and catalase enzymes compared to healthy plants. The results obtained from the affected plants revealed that the activities of both enzymes were still less in the plants treated with mycorrhizae than untreated plants. Finally, these results suggest that the use of chitosan NPs in combination with mycorrhizae is one of the methods that can be adopted to achieve the goal of sustainable agriculture in controlling maize late wilt and improve its growth.

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