Isolation of Endophytic Bacteria and evaluate efficacy against Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum L.) Fusarium wilt.

The pathogen was isolated from wilted plants collected from the research farm of JNKVV, Jabalpur (2019-20) and was identified as F. oxysporum f. sp. ciceris based on of cultural and morphological characters. A total of 14 Seed endophytic bacteria were isolated from chickpea seeds by using the serial dilution technique. SEB was used to evaluate their antagonism activity against F. oxysporum f. sp. ciceris by using a dual culture experiment on nutrient agar and PDA based solid media. The results of the dual culture experiment revealed that five SEB were reported to be effective in inhibition of fungal pathogens of chickpea, where, SEB-5 had shown the highest inhibition with 79.58% followed by SEB-3 (74.83%), SEB-2 (67.78%), SEB-1 (67.62%) and SEB-4 (50.36%) on PDA. In case of nutrient agar medium maximum inhibition (76.03%) was found in SEB-5 isolate followed by SEB-3 (73.71%), SEB-2 (65.16%), SEB-1 (59.28%) and SEB-4 (49.50%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]