Abstract
The anti-nematode activity of Trichoderma longibrachiatum and Mortierella alpina was studied against Meloidogyne javanica. Treatment of eggs with T. longibrachiatum and M. alpina infected 89.3 and 90.3% eggs, respectively at 10(7)cfu/ml. The both fungi decreased hatching rate of eggs by 8.9% (T longibrachiatum) and 5.7% (M. alpine) and. Otherwise, the culture filtrates of T longibrachiatum and M. alpine caused mortality of M. javanica second stage juveniles (J(2)) with 64.5 and 54.3% after 72 h of exposures, respectively. Under greenhouse conditions, all treatments reduced the disease severity and enhanced plant growth compared to untreated control. Both fungi reduced galls number/plant, number of egg masses/plant and the number of eggs/eggmass. Plant height, root length, fresh and dry weight/plant were significantly reduced because of infection with M. javanica, however the application of biocontrol agents recovered this reduction. Furthermore, they enhanced the growth parameters compared with the control. Our results proved that the application of different biocontrol agents not only has a toxic effect on M. javanica, but also enhances the plant growth, supplying many nutritional elements and induction the systemic resistance in plants. We demonstrated that application at a concentration of 10(6) or 10(7)cfu/ml to soil is, needed for sufficient biocontrol of M. javanica by T longibrachiatum and M. alpina.