Soil Solarization Combined with Commercial Fungicides for Controlling of Onion and Garlic White Rot Disease

Abstract

Onion (Allium cepa L.) and garlic (Allium sativum L.) are very important Egyptian and Chinese table vegetable crops as otherworld countries. But, these crops face a serious disease of white rot which is caused by the soil-borne fungus, Sclerotium cepivora. In this study, application of soil solarization technology with/without some commercial fungicides was tested for their ability to inhibit mycelial growth of S. cepivora at in vitro state. Complete inhibition was obtained with 5.0 ppm of Chipco 50 %, Actamyl M70 and Folicur 25 % and 10.0 ppm of Switch 62.5 %. Consequently, application of soil solarization combined with the used fungicides reduced garlic yield losses to about 7 % in treated fields, also with onion crop. Soil solarization combined with tebuconazole gave the best result (17.4 kg/plot). Application of soil solarization technique improved the ability of fungicides to control white rot disease and increase the final crop yield. Thus, the soil solarization technology may be developed to apply in Saharan and sub-Saharan countries like Egypt as a cheap and safe treatment for microbial plant diseases.