Ecofriendly management of late blight of potato caused by Phytophthora infestans (L)

Abstract

Potato is an important vegetable crop which is cultivated all over the world. Potato crop is highly affected by Phytophthora infestans at low temperature and high humidity. In severe case whole field converted into burnt blacken field. Many chemical fungicides are used to control this pathogen but these fungicides also affect soil and water microflora and environment become affected. Present study focused to avoid these adversely affects on environments and used green materials like plant extracts to control phytopathogenic fungi Phytophthora infestans that cause late blight of potato. Some plant extracts showed highly effective activity while some of them were not effective at al. Objectives: Application of ecofriendly, toxin free method to control phytopathogenic fungi- Phtyophthora infestans. Some plants are collected from the field of Meerut and Hardwar region and powdered after drying at 60oC overnight in the oven and powdered green materials were subjected to convenient process: soxhlet extraction unit (Virot et al., 2007). Solvent prepared at different concentrations and discs applied on potato leaves after inoculating pathogen on leaves (Heatley, 1944). Terminalia sp and Psoralia sp showed encouraging result while some plant extracts were not effective.Plant extracts are fully safe to the environment and not toxic to anyone.