Dynamics of Foliar Application of Silver Nitrate on <i>Fusarium wilt</i> Severity, Growth and Fruit Yield of Tomato

Management of fungal diseases on crop plants has been towards developing safe and sustainable approaches that pose less danger to man and the environment. The study examined the foliar application of silver nitrate in screenhouse for the management of the Fusarium wilt of tomato. A completely randomized design was used for the experiment and replicated three times. The experiment consisted of a tomato variety (Roma round) and silver nitrate (AgNO3) at 10 ppm, 50 ppm, and 100 ppm. Untreated control (0 ppm) pots served as negative control while Carbendazim (2500 ppm) served as a positive control. Results revealed that tomato plants treated with silver nitrate at 100 ppm at 8th WAT had a severity index of 3.00, which was significantly lower than the 4.33 and 6.00 disease severity recorded for plants treated with 50, 10 and 0 ppm concentrations of silver nitrate, respectively. The highest harvested fruit yield (35.90 tons/ha) was recorded for plants treated with Carbendazim, followed by 32.59 tons/ha recorded for plants treated with 100 ppm silver nitrate, which were not significantly different from each other. However, both values were significantly different from 20.47, 0.40, and 0.31 tons/ha fruit yield recorded for plants treated with 50, 10, and 0 ppm silver nitrate concentrations, respectively. The results showed that silver nitrate at 100 ppm concentration can reduce Fusarium wilt infection on tomato which would consequently translate to fruit yield increase.