Effect of Tomatine on Termitomyces Fungus in Termitaria of Subterranean Termites Odontotermes wallonensis Wasmann

Tomatine is a glycoalkaloid found in the stems and leaves of tomato plants, which has fungicidal properties. This laboratory studies were carried out to find out the efficacy of tomatine on the Termitomyces fungus found in the termitaria of O. wallonensis, it was applied through Difco media for fungal growth. The overall period of observations (15 days) revealed that tomatine 1000 ppm effectively reduced the mean diameter growth of fungus (1.41 cm) followed by tomatine 900 ppm (1.52 cm). The fungal growth of fungus in the standard check carbendazim 500 ppm was 1.32 cm whereas it was 8.17 cm in untreated check. The highest suppression of fungus was noticed in carbendazim 500 ppm (84.59 %) which was on par with tomatine 1000 ppm (83.44 %). Tomatine 900 ppm was also suppressed the fungus effectively at 82.08 per cent. The least mean per cent suppression (68.37 %) was noticed in the lower concentration of tomatine 600 ppm. The per cent suppression of fungal growth was decreased from 5^th day to 15^th day of observation. This study was supported by many earlier contributions. Finally the result was concluded that tomatine could be used as a termiticide to control fungus growing termites.