Effect of seed treatment with water extract of basil leaves and Trichoderma harzianum in resistance to the death of Okra seeds in the glass house

ABSTRACT<br /> Okra seeds were soaked in selected concentrations from a previous study in aqueous extracts (30%) of sweet basil Ocimum basilicum and culture filtrate of the biocontrol agent T.harzianum (30%) and their mixture which gave the highest inhibitory effect for the mycelium growth of fungi causing damping off fungi of Okra Rhizoctonia solani, Macrophomina phaseolina and Fusarium solani. All seed treatments had gave significant effect on reduction of pre and post emergence damping-off. Treating the seeds with aqueous extract was better than culture filtrate of T.harzianum while the treatment with mixture of aqueous extract and culture filterate was the best in decreasing disease severity of infection by M. phaseolina which was 0.09 as compared to control 0.134 and gave the highest length of seedlings (23.06) followed by the treatment of F. solani and mixture of fungi which did not differ significantly from each other.Moreover, mixture treatment also gave the highest increase in shoot length and fresh weight of the seedlings in case of treatments with all pathogenic fungi.