Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(11): 699-705 699 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2018.711.083 Post-Harvest Treatment of Inorganic Salts Reduces the Disease Severity of Banana Anthracnose Divya Jagana*, Yashoda R. Hegde and L. Rajasekhar Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad - 580005, Karnataka, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Inorganic salts have anti-fungal properties that make them desirable for inclusion in disease management programmes of field diseases of many crops as well as post-harvest diseases of perishables like fruits and vegetables (Deliopoulus et al., 2010). Banana is very important tropical fruit suffers post-harvest losses due to fruit rots mainly by anthracnose caused by Colletotrichum musae is most prevelent postharvest disease, it has been a major constraint in the marketing of fruit intended for local as well as distant markets (Ghazanfar et al., 2007). Control of postharvest diseases has been traditionally achieved by pre and postharvest applications of fungicides. However, low availability of effective and approved fungicides for post- harvest treatment, resistance development in pathogens and environmental concerns as well as the low level of acceptance of plant derived products by market place, indicate the necessity of intensifying research towards novel and sustainable disease management approaches. Inorganic salts can be alternative to chemical fungicides as studied by many researchers for their antifungal efficiency to control postharvest diseases of fruits and vegetables by various workers (Olivier et al., 1998; Palmer et al., 1997). The effect of inorganic salts with or without surfactant on International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 11 (2018) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com The present investigations intended to revise the effect of inorganic salts as post-harvest treatment aiming at reduction severity of banana anthracnose, a predominant postharvest disease of banana caused by Colletotrichum musae. Experiments were carried out during 2016 in department of plant pathology, UAS, Dharwad. Four inorganic salts were tested for their efficacy at three concentrations (1, 5 and 10 % w/v) in vitro against Colletotrichum musae and also evaluated post-harvest fruit treatment in vivo viz; Boric acid (HBO 3 ), Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO 3 ), Sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), Mono potassium phosphate (K 2 HPO 4 ) with surfactant. Findings of present study shown that postharvest treatment of banana with Boric acid at 5.0 and 10.0 per cent concentration and Sodium bicarbonate at 10.0 per cent concentration showed maximum disease severity reduction (91.18 %) which was significantly superior to all other salts evaluated in vivo at different tested concentrations. Keywords Inorganic salts, Banana anthracnose, Disease reduction, Post harvest treatment Accepted: 08 October 2018 Available Online: 10 November 2018 Article Info