231 Enhancing Soil Suppressiveness Using Formulated Gliocladium to Control Banana Fusarium Wilt Disease C. Hermanto a , Eliza and D. Emilda Indonesian Tropical Fruit Research Institute Jl. Raya Solok, Aripan Km 08, PO Box 5, Solok 27301 West Sumatera Indonesia Keywords: banana, Fusarium wilt, biological control Abstract Fusarium wilt has become a critical and crucial issue in world banana production due to it being a deadly disease that has caused significant losses for many banana industries around the world. The objective of this research was to find an environmentally friendly control measure through enhanced soil suppression of fusarium wilt disease. The research was carried out in Batu Sangkar, West Sumatera, Indonesia in 2006-2007, on a site with natural inoculation of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense VCG 01213/16. The experiment used the ‘Ambon Hijau’ (Cavendish type) cultivar, arranged in randomized block design with three replications and 20 plants per replicate. The treatments were A) Gliostar (a formulated Gliocladium), B) M-Rif (a formulated organic material), C) Trichoderma (check plot, biocontrol that is commonly used by farmers), D) Gliostar + M-Rif, E) Gliostar + Trichoderma, F) Trichoderma + M-Rif, G) Gliostar + Trichoderma + M-Rif, H) Control. The results showed that all of the treatments reduced Fusarium propagules in the soil, but did not impact on Fusarium wilt incidence unless organic material was added. INTRODUCTION Panama or Fusarium wilt disease in banana is caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc). The disease causes serious threat to banana production (Stover and Simmonds, 1987; Pegg et al., 1993; Nasir et al., 1999), and Simmonds (1960) ranks it as the first of six deadly diseases in world banana production. Foc, as the soil borne pathogen, infecting almost all of the commercial cultivars of banana (Buddenhagen, 1995; Ploetz and Pegg, 1997; Pittaway et al., 1999; Stover, 1962), having high variability and complexity in term of races, strains, and the range of genomes of infected banana (Stover and Buddenhagen, 1986; Pegg et al., 1996; Ploetz and Pegg, 1997). By the 1950s, 40,000 ha of ‘Gross Michel’ plantations in Latin America were devastated by Fusarium wilt (Simmonds, 1962). It is predicted that the total damage to ‘Gross Michel’, ‘Cavendish’ and other local bananas due to Fusarium wilt has reached 100,000 ha, mainly on big banana plantations in Asia, which were sporadically destroyed by tropical race 4 of this disease within only 20 years. This race, which originated from tropical Asia, is much more virulent than others. Even though Fusarium wilt disease largely destroyed the banana industry in Indonesia, reports on its economic loss are very limited. In Riau Province, 300 ha of ‘Cavendish’ plantations that were established in the 1980s and provided produce that was exported to Japan, Singapore, Korea and Middle East, were devastated by 1995. The estimated financial loss was 18 billion rupiah. Nurhadi et al. (1994) reported that losses caused by Fusarium and bacterial wilt in Lampung reached 2.8 billion rupiah in the 1993- 1994 harvesting period. It was also predicted that around 1000 ha of ‘Barangan’ in commercial orchards and farmers’ fields were destroyed by Fusarium wilt. Infection was also reported on ‘Kepok Kuning’ (ABB) in West Sumatera (Nasir et al., 1999) and on ‘Tanduk’ in Lampung. a c_her25@yahoo.com Proc. 4 th International Symposium on Tropical and Subtropical Fruits Eds.: Endah Retno Palupi et al. Acta Hort. 975, ISHS 2013