EVALUATING THE EFFECT OF Meloidogyne incognita ON THE GROWTH AND YIELD OF SOME VARIETIES OF EGGPLANT (Solanum spp.) IN MINNA, NIGERIA

Abstract

Root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne species) are microscopic and parasitic which can be found in the roots of infected plants. Meloidogyne genus has about 98 species and most common species most commonly encountered by farmers were Meloidogyne incognita, Meloidogyne. javanica, Meloidogyne hapla, and Meloidogyne arenaria. Damage caused by the nematodes can be determined by measuring reductions in growth and yields of crops. Eggplant suffers from a number of diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, and nematodes. This experiment emanated from the fact that Eggplant Solanum species are one of the varieties of crops grown in Nigeria, but the yield has been very low as a result of some associated problems like pests and disease infections caused by nematodes. The study was conceived to evaluate the effect of different levels of Meloidogyne incognita infection on the growth and yield of some varieties of eggplant (Solanum species). The experiment had four species of Solanum, namely, Solanum eathiopicum L. (Bello), Solanum gilo L. (Green), Solanum macrocarpon L. (White), and Solanum Melongena L. (Yalo) and five levels of inoculations with Melonogyny incognita (I0 (Control), I10, I20, I30, and I40). The experimental design was a 4 x 5 factorial experiment arranged in a complete randomised design with three replications. Solanum melongena L. significantly had the highest growth and yield components. Variations in growth and yield variables of some varieties of eggplant were found in response to M. incognita infection. Solanum melongena L. significantly produced the highest values of growth components:plant height (63.90 cm), number of branches (20.40cm), number of fruits per plant (3.00) and fruit yield per plant (403.03kg ha -1 ). Among the eggplant varieties used, Solanum melongena performed best because it gave the heights growth and yield rates. Also I0 significantly produce the highest yield components (number of fruits, Similarly, I40 significantly gave the highest number of galls, of 8.00 followed by I20 which recorded 7.00 while I0 recorded no galls 0.00.