Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Sclerotium rolfsii Sacc, [teleomorph: Athelia rolfsii (Curzi)] causing collar rot of chickpea, is a devastating soil-borne fungus. It is reported almost all over the world with 10 to 30% yield loss is recorded annually according to severity of the disease. It is more serious at seedling stage causing plant mortality ranged from 54.7 to 95%. The present investigation was undertaken to find out bio-efficacy of twenty native isolates of Trichoderma spp.

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... ted from rhizospheric zone of eight different crops from different locations of Jabalpur by using serial dilution method against Sclerotium rolfsii and their effects on growth parameters of chickpea plant. In vitro screening of isolates (20) of Trichoderma spp. against Sclerotium rolfsii was done by dual culture technique with 87.41 and 39.78% of maximum and minimum per cent zone inhibition recorded with T-20 and T-7 isolate. On the basis of cultural and morphological characters best eight isolates; one from each host were selected for further studies in polyhouse. Tr-7 was found to be most effective with minimum seedling mortality of 6.67%. Soil inoculation was found more effective as compared to seed treatment in controlling seed rotting as well as seedling mortality. In combination treatments some isolates of Trichoderma spp. were found to be synergistic (Tr-2, Tr-4, Tr-6, Tr-7 and Tr-8) whereas, some exhibiting antagonistic effect (Tr-1, Tr-3 and Tr-5) with Pseudomonas fluorescence.