Integrated management strategies for tomato Fusarium wilt.

Fusarium wilt is caused by the fungal pathogens, Fusarium oxysporum or Fusarium solani. It is a devastating disease that affects many important food and vegetable crops and a major source of loss to farmers worldwide. Initial strategies developed to combat this devastating plant disease include the use of cultural, physical and chemical control. None of these strategies have been able to give the best results of completely ameliorating the situation except for the cultural method which is mainly preventive. A good knowledge of the nature, behaviour and environmental conditions of growth of the disease agent is very important to controlling the disease development in that case. Biological control has been shown to be an environmentally friendly alternative. It makes use of rhizospheric and endophytic microorganisms that can survive and compete favourably well with the Fusarium wilt pathogen. They include plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) such as Bacillus spp. and Pseudomonas spp. For PGPR to control or inhibit the growth of the Fusarium wilt pathogen, they make use of mechanisms such as indole acetic acid production, siderophore production, phosphate solublilization, systemic resistance induction and antifungal volatile production among others.