Fungicidal Soil Treatments to Control Damping-off Diseases in Pines

Nine chemicals including two highly phytotoxic and seven relatively non-phytotoxic ones are screened to study their effectiveness in the control of damping-off diseases, using three Pinus species. Except for brassicol and zinc oxide, a1l other chemicals effectively checked the disease. However, only blitox, zineb and cuman controlled the disease and thereby signlficantly increased the number of seedlings. Formalin, sulphuric acid, captan and thiram controlled the disease effectively. However, these chemicals decreased germination possibly due to phytotoxic effect of dosages of chemicals and this resulted in reduced number of seedlings. Pinus insularis was found to be more susceptible to damping-off than the other two species. The incidence of damping-off in the three different species differed on soils differently treated.