Compost Tea and Poultry Litter Extract: Alternative Organic Management Approaches for Stem Canker of Potato Caused by Rhizoctonia solani

An experiment was conducted in the field laboratory, Department of Plant pathology, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh to know the efficacy of compost tea and poultry litter extract in controlling stem canker of potato under natural infection condition. Significant effect of different treatments was observed on the incidence of stem canker of potato as compared to control. The results evidently showed the lowest stem canker incidence recorded in plots when IPM Lab Biopesticde was applied followed by foliar spray of Ridomil, compost tea, and BAU-Biofungicide while the highest stem canker incidence was recorded in untreated control plot. However, the soil drenching of compost tea and poultry litter extract also performed better as compared to control in reducing the incidence of stem canker. Significant effect of the treatments was observed on the plant height and yield except number of plant raised per tuber. Foliar and soil application of compost tea, poultry litter and mustard oil cake showed better performance in increasing the plant height and yield as compared to all other treatments. Benefit cost analyses of the treatments revealed that foliar application of compost tea showed highest BCR (65.20) followed by Soil application of IPM Lab Biopesticide with BCR 54.38. The treatments viz. foliar spray of Ridomil and BAU-Biofungicide resulted 35.31 and 38.88 BCR, respectively which were the second best treatments as compared to untreated control. The results indicated that an investment of Tk. 1.00 may lead to a profit up to Tk. 65.20 by foliar application of compost tea which shows the maximum profit in the present study. Therefore, compost tea as foliar spray may be used as an alternative environment-friendly approach to control stem canker of potato along with other biological means with maximum economic return.