«In vitro» Antagonistic Action of Egg Plant and Sweet Potato Phylloplane Bacteria to Some Parasitic Fungi

Abstract

Bacteria were isolated from the phylloplane of two crop plants commonly cultivated in Egypt. Thirty-one bacteria isolated from Solanum melongena, and twenty from Ipomoea batatas cv. Mabrouka were screened for their antagonistic behavior against five foliar and soil-borne fungal pathogens. The antagonism data derived from the 51 isolates were subjected to cluster analysis. Four isolates, two from S. melongena (SM8, SM31) and two from I. batatas (IB2, IB18), were chosen for further identification as they showed the greatest inhibition to all the phytopathogens tested. The four antagonistic isolates were identified as Erwinia herbicola, (SM31, IB2), Pseudomonas fluorescens (SM8) and Bacillus subtilis (IB18).