Effects Of Seasonal Disparity on Crop Susceptibility to Injuries of Phyto-Parasitic Nematodes
Ogenetega Emeriewen
Emmanuel Green Ekine
Abstract
Seasonal discrepancies can display effects on the sequence of events in the soil ecosystem and impact on the biotic and abiotic elements, exposing crop plants to conditions relatively requiring resilient for survival and prompt parasites to intensify mechanisms to stay alive. This scenario increases vulnerability of host plants to infections of parasitic pathogens in soil. This study tested the effects of seasonal disparity as it influences crop susceptivity to injuries of plant parasitic nematodes and established that nematode penetration on plant tissue and population richness in soil is seasonal reliance. Soil and root sampling were done during dry and wet seasons using a modified soil auger and hand trowel. Determination of gall index to access crop injury was done on a scale of 0-4 where 0 represent no infection, 1-10 (light infection), 11-20 (moderate infection and 21 and above represent severe infection. The study adopted the modified Bearman’s extraction technique for nematode extraction. Nematode population in soil was high at wet season (75.9%) when compare with the observation during the dry season (24.1%). However, nematode population was higher in the root tissue of bell pepper during the dry season (73.6%) compared to wet was 26.4%. In this study, crop injuries were relatively severe at dry season. This observation is evidence that crop plants are relatively susceptible to infections of parasitic agents in soil during dry season.
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