Abstract:
Chickpea(Ciceri arietinum L). Is an important crop in Sudan. This imperative crop is severely affected by the wilt disease of Fusarium oxysporium f.sp. ciceris.
However, the indiscriminate use of synthetic fungicides and their increasing hazards to the public health and the environment coupled with the development of resistant strains of phytopathogenic fungi has led to the use of safe alternate products. In the present study, the fungus was isolated from infected Chickpea plants and cultured in PDA media. Then the cultured fungus was confirmed to be Fusarium oxysporium f . sp. ciceris when compared to a previously prepared slides at the plant pathology laboratory. The cloves of garlic (Allium sativum L.) aqueous extract was tested for their antifungal potential against F. Oxysporium f. Sp. ciceris at the Plant Pathology Laboratory of the College of Agricultural Studies (CAS), Sudan University of Science and Technology during 2019. Various concentrations i.e. 25, 50, and 75% of garlic cloves aqueous extract were prepared and their invitro bioactivity was examined against the said fungus. Our results revealed that All the tested concentrations were found significantly (P0.05) inhibiting the growth of the fungus. The higher concentration of aqueous extract (75%) caused the maximum inhibition in the diameter of the tested fungus by 100% followed by the concentration (50%) which inhibited the fungus growth by 45.4% and the concentration (25%) by 36.1 %, while the fungicide “Till Nour 25%” inhibited the fungus growth by 88.8%. The inhibition zone of the three tested concentrations i.e. 25, 50, and 75% were compared with untreated control and a standard chemical (Till Nour 25%). Our results conclude that garlic aqueous extract are promising and encouraging to carry out further chemical analyses of other parts of garlic plant to identify the effective ingredients to use as alternatives to harmful pesticides that adversely affect human, animal and environment. Finally, we recommend further studies for the bioactivity of the garlic extracts by using other parts of the plant. More studies is also needed to examine the effect of garlic extracts on the wilt fungus “InVivo under field conditions.
