Environmentally Friendly Control of Fusarium Wilt in Chili Plants

Chili is a horticultural plant that is needed both in fresh and processed form for household consumption, industry and food processing. In chili cultivation, various diseases often appear. Fusarium wilt disease is a serious disease that can attack at various plant ages and is difficult to control. This wilt disease is caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. capsici which is a soil borne pathogen. This disease is easy to develop and spreads during the rainy season, high humidity and low soil pH.

Symptoms of this disease are seen on the neck of the stem near the rotting brown soil and filled with white fungal spores and spread to the roots. This pathogen attacks the vessel tissue so that the transport of water and nutrients to the top of the plant is disturbed so that the plant shows wilting symptoms. The symptoms of this disease are similar to those of bacterial wilt. The wilt caused by plant bacteria withers and dies dry in 2-3 days, while fusariun wilt looks like it's getting worse so that death takes 7-10 days.

Until now, no effective fungicide has been found to control fusarium wilt disease in chili plants. Therefore, it is very necessary to carry out biological control techniques with antagonistic fungi to reduce environmental pollution. One of the antagonistic fungi that has been isolated in the laboratory is Trichoderma sp. Laboratory test results showed the inhibition power was up to 86.05 percent. Next, multiply the Trichoderma sp. Mushroom on bran and corn media with a 1: 2 ratio that has been steamed beforehand. After growing, 2 kg of Trichoderma sp. on maize media with 100 kg of compost, 100 kg of chicken manure, 100 kg of cow manure and then incubated for 1 week before application in the field. Each plastic bag is filled with 10 kg of soil mixture, cow manure with Trichoderma sp. and 10 kg of chicken manure mixture with Trichoderma sp, then planted with large chili seeds that are 3 weeks old.

The yield of chili plants in the treatment of soil media + cow dung + Trichoderma sp. higher than the treatment of soil media + chicken manure + Trichoderma sp. with an average yield of 345.48 and 243.41 g per plant. This is probably due to the cow dung compost that has completely decomposed so that it is ready to be absorbed by plant roots.