Development of Meloidogyne incognita on selected okra cultivars

Abstract

Okra is a valuable vegetable crop of Pakistan. It is predominantly hosted by pathogens that reduce its yield and quality. Among these yield reducing agents, root knot nematodes are very important due to their host rang. Chemical control for this important pathogen is expensive and causes pollution problems so the present study was planned to evaluate the level of resistance among different available varieties of okra against Meloidogyne incognita under field conditions. The selected field was already infested with M. incognita. Data were recorded on various plant growth parameters and nematode development parameters after sixty days. Results indicated that for various nematode populations and plant growth attributes all the cultivars significantly differed with the Sabzpari 2001 and Sabzpari X Ramakrishna having best performance on over all yield by showing moderately resistant response but no variety was resistant against M. incognita. On over all basis and yield attributes, it is recommended that Sabzpari 2001 and Sabzpari X Ramakrishna are moderately resistant to nematode infestation and should be recommended to farmers in root knot nematode infested soils of Pakistan