Isolation and In vitro Studies of Native Isolates of Bacillus subtilison Maize Stalk Rot Incited by Fusarium verticillioides

Fusarium wilt of maize is a widely distributed and the most destructive disease caused by Fusarium verticillioides. The main objective of this experiment is to identify the effective Bacillus isolates against Fusarium verticillioides under in vitro condition. A total of 10 Bacillus spp. isolates were isolated from rhizhosphere region of maize plants in different locations of Telangana state and tested for antagonistic activity at department of plant pathology, Maize Research Centre, Agricultural Research Institute, Rajendranagar. All the isolates of Bacillus spp. were used for determining theirbio efficacy against Fusarium verticillioides. All the isolates not shown similar bio efficacy and differerd in their antagonistic activity against F. verticillioides mycelial growth. Among them the isolates B-ISO-3 and B-ISO-2 were found to record significantly higher percent reduction of mycelial growth 63.3 and 62.8 % respectively, followed by B-ISO-9 which recorded 61.3%t reduction of mycelial growth over control. The lowest percent reduction of mycelial growth was recorded with the isolate B-IS0-8 (34.2 %) over control.