Isolation and evaluation of antagonistic bacteria towards turcicum leaf blight and maydis leaf blight       and their growth promotion ability in maize

Y Rai1, Rajesh Singh2

1The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India

2Genetics and Plant Breeding, IAS, BHU, Varanasi-221005

ABSTRACT

Turcicum leaf blight and Maydis leaf blight are among the important fungal diseases of maize in the indo-gangatic plains. The aim of this work was to evaluate the possibility of exploiting antagonistic bacteria in the biological control of Turcicum Leaf Blight and Maydis leaf blight. Among the collections of the bacterial strains isolated from various plants in the different regions of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, eight and eleven antagonists were selected against E. turcicum and Bipolaris maydis respectively. These strains were identified as actinomycetes, pseudomonas and bacillus strains.The isolates BMBA64 and BMBK8 showed strong antagonistic activity against E. turcicum (85.5%) and Bipolaris maydis (87.2%) respectively. BMBK8 also showed strong plant growth promotion and phosphate solublization abilities. These results indicated that both the strains are promising candidates for biological control agents of Northern and Southern Corn Leaf Blight in the indo-Gangatic plains.

Key Words: Antagonistic bacteria, MLB, TLB