Evaluation of Fungicide Efficacy for the Management of Tomato Late Blight (Phytopthora infestans (Mont) Debary) at Rama Northern Ethiopia

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) is an annual shrubby member of the solonaceae family which also include potato and peppers. It is an important vegetable crop grown around the world and is second to potato. Its fruit is an essential component of human diet for the supply of vitamins, minerals and certain types of hormones precursors in addition to protein and energy. It is one of the most important vegetable crops and is widely grown in Ethiopia, ranking 5th in the annual national production of vegetables and its productivity was 4.37 t/ha which is very low. To solve such serious production problem, an experiment was conducted at Rama in 2018 and 2019 irrigation seasons with the objective of to evaluate efficacy of fungicides chemical for the management of tomato late blight. Five fungicide chemicals of Redomill Gold 68WG, Honor, Carbenchor, Agro laxylMz 63.5WP, Curzate M 68 WP and one control treatment was used and treatments were randomly arranged in factorial RCBD with three replications and the spacing between plots and blocks were 1.5m and 2m respectively and the spacing between plants and rows were 0.3m and 0.8m respectively per the recommendation of AxARC. All the necessary data were collected and analysed using SAS computer software. Statistically significant difference was observed in disease severity and AUDPC parameters among fungicide treated and untreated check. The highest severity and AUDPC were scored (5.28) and 21.12 respectively in 2018 as well as 2.91 and 17.84 in 2019.Similarly significantly highest 28.48 tha-1marketable yield of tomato was obtained from the fungicide chemical treated plots as compared to the non-treated control plots except plots treated with fungicide chemical of Curzate. Highest (4.85) tha -1and (4.04) tha-1 weight of unmarketable tomato yield was obtained from the un treated plots respectively in 2018 and 2019 irrigation season respectively followed by 3.06tha-1 in 2018 from Redomil gold treated plots and 2.90tha-1 from Carbenchlor and 2.69tha-1 from honor treated in 2019 irrigation seasons. Farmers have to use the evaluated fungicide chemicals interchangeably one after the other but not at the same time to control tomato late blight diseases effectively as each fungicide chemicals have their own specific active ingredient and system of inhibiting disease causing pathogens although there was no significant difference among the evaluated chemicals on the control of tomato late blight.