~ 2908 ~ Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry 2018; 7(3): 2908-2911 E-ISSN: 2278-4136 P-ISSN: 2349-8234 JPP 2018; 7(3): 2908-2911 Received: 23-03-2018 Accepted: 28-04-2018 Anmol Singh Yadav Department of Mycology and Plant Pathology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, BHU, Varanasi, Uttar Parades, India Supriya Yadav Department of Plant Pathology, C. S. A. University of Agriculture & Technology, Kanpur, Uttar Parades, India Ramesh Singh Department of Plant Pathology, C. S. A. University of Agriculture & Technology, Kanpur, Uttar Parades, India Correspondence Anmol Singh Yadav Department of Mycology and Plant Pathology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, BHU, Varanasi, Uttar Parades India Screening of fungicides in vitro and seed treatment against fusarium wilt of chickpea caused by Fusarium oxysporum F. sp . ciceris Anmol Singh Yadav, Supriya Yadav and Ramesh Singh Abstract Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important rabi season pulse crop in India belonging to leguminous family. It is good source of protein and possesses nitrogen fixing ability. Various diseases affect the chickpea viz. Ascochyta blight, Phytophthora root rot, Botrytis grey mold, Damping off, Pythium rot/seed rot; Rust and Fusarium wilt in which Fusarium causes severe yield loss of about 60 percent. Among the ten fungicides tested in laboratory, Benlate, Companion, Bavistin, Thiram and Chlorothalonil completely (100%) inhibited the growth of the fungus while seven fungicides were used for seed treatment, where all of them were found significantly superior over control and Bavistin gave best result for seed treatment. Keywords: fungicide, fusarium, seed treatment, wilt Introduction Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) belonging to leguminosae, is the third most important pulse crop, after dry bean and peas, produced in the world. It accounts for 20 per cent of the world with the largest area (135.40 lakh ha.) and highest production (131.02 lakh tones) in the world (Anonymous 2016) [3] . Six countries including India, Australia, Turkey, Myanmar, Pakistan and Ethiopia account for about 90 per cent of world chickpea production. India is the largest consumer of chickpea in the world. As a result, the country occupied second place in the world despite contributing for about 70 per cent of world’s total production (Anonymous, 2015) [2] . In India, it is grown in an area of 96 lakh ha with the production of 88.32 lakh tones with the productivity of 968 kg /ha (Anonymous, 2016) [3] . Besides the good source of protein (22%), it also contains calcium (280mg/100gm), carbohydrate (61-62%), Iron (12.3 mg/100gm). It fixes about 30-50 kg /ha of nitrogen (Singh, 1998). The region between the South of the Caucasus and in the North of Persia are the place of possible origin of chickpea as this was also supported by Van der Maesen (1972) [16] . Chickpea is affected by various diseases viz. Ascochyta blight, Phytophthora root rot, Botrytis grey mold, Damping off, Pythium rot and seed rot, Rust and Fusarium wilt in which fusarium causes severe yield loss about 60 percent (Singh and Gupta, 2007) [14] . Fusarium wilt is a seed and soil born fungal disease. As elimination of the pathogen is one of the principles of disease management, contaminated seeds are treated chemically to kill the surface contaminants of those that are not deep seated (H.C. Dube, 2016) [16] . Specific fungicides can control the disease or suppress the fungal growth in very short period of time. Bavistin and thiram are reported effective for the control of wilt disease of the chickpea (Verma and Vyas, (1977) [17] , Shukla et al., (1981) [12] . Agallol and brassicol are also reported as best fungicides (Das, 1987) [5] . Some fungicides used with the combination of bioagent viz. Trichoderma with vitavax and thiram, (Mukhopadhyay et al., 1992) [10] , bacillus subtilis with carboxin gives significant control over Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri and Carboxin also reported to reduce wilt incidence and increased seed yield (De et al., 1996) [6] . Maheshwari et al., (2008) [9] reported Carbendazim to be the most effective fungicide for checking the mycelial growth of fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lentis (5.6 mm) followed by Capton (9.9 mm), hexaconazole (12.5 mm) and diniconazole (16.44 mm). Seed treatment is done by various methods. It is may divided into three categories depending on the nature and purpose of the treatment i.e. seed disinfection, seed disinfestation and seed protection. Generally systemic fungicides are used for seed treatment. Seed treatment with Bavistin against chickpea wilt was found effective and it used as best chemical for seed treatment (Verma et al., 1977) [17] .