Biotechnology

Biography

Biography: Amrita Saxena

Abstract

Sustainable approach by employing biological control strategies to manage the losses caused by phytopathogens has been proposed as a silver lining to beget the lost ecological homeostasis. Keeping track to the climatic change in the environment leading to aberrant harm to agriculture, BCAs that are efficient abiotic stress tolerant apart from possessing antagonistic ability should be opted. The microbial community dwelling at the phylloplane of the leaves cope directly with the environmental alterations. And hence are more stress tolerant than those found at the rhizospheric region of the plants. A study was carried out to compare the ability of the Trichoderma isolates obtained from the phylloplane of healthy chilli leaves with those obtained from the rhizospheric region in terms of providing better protection against the anthracnose causing pathogen, Colletotrichum capsici. Interesting results were obtained which supported the possibility of using phyllospheric Trichoderma isolates against the anthracnose causing pathogen. The screened Trichoderma isolates obtained from the phyllosphere region were found to show elevation in induction of defense networking in host chilli plants akin to that shown by the rhizospheric Trichoderma isolates as evident by HPLC phenolic profiling, defense gene expression studies and histochemical staining procedures. The increment in phenolic and defense related enzymes suggested the direct influence of the antagonist on the induction of defense response of the plant on pathogen challenge. The study suggests the benefit of incorporating phyllospheric Trichoderma isolates for providing a dual protection to plants against foliar pathogens along with better survivability to the prevalent climate change