Evaluation of Different Germplasms/Cultivars of Tomato against Early Blight (Alternaria solani) in Field Conditions and by Artificial Inoculation Method: A Review Article

An experiment was conducted for evaluation of tomato germplasm in field conditions and by artificial inoculation method in polyhouse conditions against early blight for two successive years at tomato farm of Swar region of Rampur district during cropping season from February to March. The total 141 tomato germplasms/cultivars were screened, including wild accessions, exotic collection, indigenous cultivars and advanced lines. Among the 141 germplasms, 5 wild accessions viz. EC-520057, EC-520058, EC-520059, EC-52061 and EC-501583 exhibited complete resistant against early blight and 10 lines viz. RCMT-1, LA-40-40-1, KS-118, H-88-78-3, IIVR-Sel-2, H-88-78-1, EC- 538394, EC-538404, NCEBR-4 and EC-508765 found moderately resistant. The 36 cultivars were found moderately susceptible where disease severity was recorded up to 70%. The 55 cultivars were found to be susceptible and 35 were reported as highly susceptible where disease severity recorded up to 100% under the field screening. In another set of experiment spore suspension of having the three different cfu levels i.e. 125, 185 and 245 were sprayed on pot experiment under polyhouse conditions on 25 cultivars of tomato to check susceptibility of tomato plant, the higher values of cfu (i.e. 245 cfu) of A. solani were able to break the immunity of plants, in which KDTS-71, DVRT-1-2, CO-3, PANT-T-3 and VFN-8 were found to be highly susceptible to early blight in field screening as well as polyhouse conditions.