STUDIES ON TOMATO EARLY BLIGHT CAUSED BY ALTERNARIA SOLANI (Ell. & Mart.) Sor. IN EGYPT

Abstract

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum. Mill) is considerated one of the most important vegetable crop in Egypt, since ca. 355,433 Feddan are grown annually with this crops in 1995 season, Anonymous 1996 which represent 33.9% of the total acreage of vegetable crops. The significance of the grown acreage is represented in facing the urgent need of both local consumption and the foreign demand in the form of fresh or processed tomatoes. In addition to the demand of export, it is considered a source of many vitamins and mineral salts required for human health and food.

In Egypt, tomato crop is subject to the invasion of pests and diseases that induce high yield losses especially such crop is being grown at four plantations all over the year. these pests and diseases may lead to the destruction of the yield and/or to minimize it's productivity and fruit quality. Successive cultivation of the same crop in the same soil may complicate the control measures, especially with the soil borne diseases.

In Egypt tomato is liable to infection with many diseases i.e. early and late blights (Alternaria so/ani and Phytophthora infestanse), leaf spots (Alternaria sp), powdery mildew (Leveillula taurica), stem and fruit rots (Rhizoctonia so/ani), (Botrytis cinerea and Pythium ultimum), anthracnose, and wilt diseases in addition to Nematodes and many othei viral diseases. The present work threw high lights on one of the important tomato diseases viz: early blight incited by Alternaria solani due to it's economic importance, this work will deal with this disease from the perspective of isolation and identification of the causal agent pathogenicity test of isolates on one tomato cultivar either on leaves or on fruits, evaluation of different tomato cultivars against the disease taking it's effect on