Impact of chemicals, plant extracts and their combination on bacterial blight of cotton

Five chemicals, incuding Flare, Plant Protector, Mancozeb, Agrimycine, and Copper oxychloride, and five plant extracts including N. tabacum, A. indica, M. oleifera, D. alba and C. longa were evaluated against bacterial blight of cotton caused by Xanthomonas citri pv. malvacearum (a bacterium). The impact of chemicals and plant extracts on bacterial development was tested in laboratory while on disease reduction was tested in green house and field experiments. Laboratory experiments showed that maximum inhibition zone of bacterial growth was expressed by Flare (1.693cm) at all concentrations followed by Plant Protector (1.473 cm), Mancozeb (1.290 cm), Agrimycine (1.150 cm) and copper oxy-chloride (0.953) cm respectively while in case of plant extracts maximum inhibition was expressed by N. tabacum (0.650 cm) followed by A. indica (0.486), M. oleifera (0.350), D. alba (0.256 cm) and C. longa (0.168 cm). Green house experiment revealed that the best result was produced by the combination of Flare and N. tabacum by indicating lowest disease incidence (32.27%) at all the tested concentration. Same results were obtained in field experiment, where the lowest disease incidence (40.41%) was recorded when the ,Flare and N. tabacum were applied in combination although it was higher then green house. This study concludes that N. tabacum and Flare are better option against bacterial disease development and even their combination is more significant lowering the bacterial blight disease incidence on cotton. Selection of suitable formulation and method of application could be the future aspects of plant product especially N. tabacum related research.