Pathogenicity of meloidogyne incognita on corchorus olitorius

TLDR: Results of pathogenicity studies on C. olitorius infected by Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid et White) Chitw.

Abstract: Summary Two experiments were carried out to study the pathoBenic effects of Meloidogyne incognita on two cultivars of Corchorus olitorius Plant height, mean number of leaves per plant, mean leaf area, fresh and dry shoot weight and chlorophyll content decreased with increases in initial inoculum levels far both cultivars in the two experiments NPK 15:15:15 was found to improve the tolerance of the plants infected by M incognita by markedly reducing the yield losses compared with plants which received no fertilizer treatment, even at lower inoculum levels lation each plant was cut through at the stem base and both fresh and dry shoot weight were then recordedRoots were uprooted and rated for galls using the 0-5 scheme of Taylor and Sasser (1978) A verage leaf area was determined by the Gunkel and MulIigan (1953)method using the relationship reported by Watson(1937) and Gunkel and MulIigan (1953) to calculate area thus: Corchorus olitorius L, an annual broadIeaf herbaceous and fibrous plant is an important crop in Nigeria where it is grown for the bast fibre and as a leaf vegetable It is susceptible to attack by various nematodes including Helicotylenchus spp, Scutellonema clathricaudatum and Hemicyclophora spp (Caveness, 1967) Meloidogyne spp may be particularly damaging (Quin, 1975) Babatola (1983) described the symptqms af attack as chlorosis, wilting, significant reductions in leaf size and total fresh weight, in addition to the characteristic gall of the roots This paper reports results of pathogenicity studies on C olitorius infected by Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid et White) Chitw and the effect of NPK 15:15:15 fertilizer on such plants