Duggal et al Int. J. Pure App. Biosci. 5 (2): 1017-1024 (2017) ISSN: 2320 – 7051 Copyright © April, 2017; IJPAB 1017 Life Cycle and Pathogenicity of Meloidogyne incognita on Capsicum frutescens under Poly-House as Compared to Screen-House Conditions Priyanka Duggal, Sewak Ram, A. K. Bhatia * and Jaydeep Patil Department of Nematology and *Department of Vegetable Science CCS HAU Hisar, Haryana 125004, India *Corresponding Author E-mail: duggalpriyanka65@gmail.com Received: 20.04.2017 | Revised: 28.04.2017 | Accepted: 29.04.2017 INTRODUCTION Capsicum (Capsicum frutescens) is variously called as green pepper, sweet pepper, bell pepper, etc. It belongs to the family Solanaceae. This crop is successfully grown under the protected cultivation which is an emerging technology for raising high value crops in tropical and sub-tropical climatic conditions of the country and it has very good potential especially in semi-urban areas around cities. The protected cultivation has shown high productivity, better quality produce, early maturity and year round cultivation of plants due to controlled environmental conditions hence gives manifolds increase in yield per unit area. Though in the polyhouses, crops are grown under protected conditions, yet the crops are not protected as it involves intensive cultivation of crops, optimum use of fertilizers and frequent use of irrigation, but continuous growing of the same crop with high day temperature and relative humidity within the greenhouse, polyhouse and low tunnel along with poor plant hygienic conditions inside and outside the greenhouse increase problem of soil borne pests and diseases including plant parasitic nematodes which results in the availability of ideal conditions for the growth and multiplication of these pests. Available online at www.ijpab.com DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18782/2320-7051.2966 ISSN: 2320 – 7051 Int. J. Pure App. Biosci. 5 (2): 1017-1024 (2017) ABSTRACT The life cycle and pathogenicity of root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita) studied on Capsicum under polyhouse as well as screen house conditions for comparision. Nematode development was observed faster under polyhouse condition (35 days) as compared to screen- house (40 days). The pathogenicity of root-knot nematode at the different inoculum levels viz., 0, 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 J 2 of Meloidogyne incognita /pot resulted into significant reduction in plant growth parameters at pathogenic level of nematode at and above 1,000 J 2 inoculum level under both the conditions but plant growth parameters like shoot length (37.7 cm), fresh shoot weight (10 g), dry shoot weight(3 g), fresh root weight(9.3 g), dry root weight (2.9 g) and nematode reproduction parameters viz. number of galls per root system, no. of egg masses per root system and final nematodes population was recorded higher under polyhouse conditions due to optimum condition for both, plant and nematode. Key words: Polyhouse, screen house, root-knot nematode, Capsicum, life cycle, pathogenicity and growth parameters. Research Article Cite this article: Duggal, P., Ram, S., Bhatia, A.K. and Patil, J., Life Cycle and Pathogenicity of Meloidogyne incognita on Capsicum frutescens under Poly-House as Compared to Screen-House Conditions, Int. J. Pure App. Biosci. 5(2): 1017-1024 (2017). doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18782/2320-7051.2966