PLANT CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Fungal and bacterial wilt of brinjal caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. melongenae and Ralstonia solanacearum respectively are the major soil borne diseases of West Bengal causing heavy losses to the farmers every year. An attempt was made to identify suitable brinjal cultivars for this locality having high resistance to wilt disease and also to manage this disease in an integrated manner with Farmers Participatory Research (FPR). Out of twenty brinjal cultivars, ten was found resistant (R), four moderately susceptible (MS) and six cultivars were found susceptible (S). None of the cultivars was found highly resistant. Variety Blue star, Utkal were found to be most appropriate in terms minimum wilt incidence 4.53 and 5.53% whereas, Variety VNR-B5, Suvarna and VNR-218 were found suitable in terms yield 46.41, 46.02 and 45.17 T ha^-11 respectively. The incidence of bacterial wilt was higher than fungal wilt in this region and it was varied between 1.43 to 23.12% and 2.3 to 15.4% respectively.  Out of different combination of organic compost tested against wilt incidence, Spent mushroom substrate (SMS) + Farmyard manure (FYM) + Earthworm compost (EWC) 1:1:1 was found most effective in inhibiting the disease (66.87% )and gave maximum plant height (99.30 cm) fruit weight (210 g), root length (48.11 cm) and yield (28.40 T ha^-1) at 120  days after transplanting (DAT). The information is very useful to the farmers for selecting the appropriate brinjal cultivars to maximize their profit as well as to minimize the wilt incidence in field.