Cultural and morphological variability were determined among the eight isolates of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. udum. The colony diameter ranged from 80.00 to 90 mm after nine days of incubation at 28 ± 1ºC. The size of macroconidia ranged from 16.5 to 20.6 μm (18.47 μm) × 2.1 to 4.1 μm (2.98 μm) in RFU to 24.0 to 37.0 μm (30.24 μm) × 2.6 to 4.0 μm (3.52 μm) in BeFU. The size of microconidia varied from 4.9 to 11.8 μm (8.10 μm) × 2.2 to 4.0 μm (2.98 μm) in BeFU to 8.3 to 17.4 μm (12.94 μm) × 2.5 to 5.8 μm (4.0 μm) in RFU. The macro conidia were 1 to 4 septate, fusaroid to sickle shaped. The shape of chlamydospores varied from round in KoFU, RFU, RjFU and BeFU isolates to oval in isolate RgFU and long oval in KFU, MFU and DFU. The size of round chlamydospores ranged from 3.8 to 4.7 μm in RFU to 6.4 to 8.7 μm in diameter in RjFU and long oval chlamydospores were 11 to 13 × 3 to 4 μm in MFU to 19 to 21 × 4 to 5 μm (Length × Breadth) in DFU.

Neonatal diarrhoea is a major threat responsible for high mortality in neonates particularly during the first week after birth. The present study was undertaken to find out the prevalence of Escherichia coli (E. coli) with neonatal kid diarrhoea. A total of 103 faecal samples were collected from diarrhoeic goat kids up to 4 weeks of age and processed for detection of E. coli by cultural and biochemical techniques. The enteropathogens detected E. coli 75 (72.81%) were recovered producing lactose fermenting pink colored colonies on MacConkey agar medium and colonies with greenish metallic sheen on EMB agar medium. Further, all the 75 isolates showed typical IMViC patterns of E. coli viz. Indole and Methyl- red positive, Voges Proskauer and Citrate negative. Out of 75 isolates, 35 isolates were sent to National Salmonella and Escherichia Center (NSEC), Central Research Institute, Kasauli. Of these 35 isolates, 22 were serotyped into nine different ‘O’ groups, while two isolates were untypable and six isolates were found rough. The serotypes obtained were O2, O84, O86, O87, O101, O118, O120, O128, O141 and O157. The most predominant serotypes were O120 (nine isolates), O141 (four isolates) and O157 (two isolates) while other serotypes were O2, O84, O86, O87, O101, O118 and O128 (one isolate each). Out of 75 isolates, very high resistance was showed against Cephalexin 72 isolates (96.00%), Kanamycin 70 isolates (93.33%). Moderate number of isolates were found to be resistant to Tetracycline 45 isolates (60.00%), while low prevalence of resistance showed against Ciprofloxacin 25 isolates (33.33%), Trimethoprim 16 isolates (21.33%), 15 isolates (20.00%) to Gatifloxacin and 12 isolate (16.00%) to Enrofloxacin.

Tomato crop is attacked by several soil borne fungal pathogens among which Rhizoctonia solani is the most important soil borne pathogen causing symptoms of damping off, crown rot and root rot. To provide bio-efficacy against casual agent, the population of rhizosphere mycoflora and fluorescent pseudomonads was estimated from the soil samples collected from diseased, healthy and luxuriously growing weed plants as colony forming units (cfu) on different culture media and were tested for their antagonistic potential against R. solani under in vitro condition. Among the sources of rhizosphere soil collected, significantly highest mean cfu count of mycoflora (27.70) and fluorescent pseudomonads (40.75) was observed in case of samples collected from weed plants followed by healthy tomato plants. Among the mycoflora, the isolate M10 was found to be the potential antagonist and was identified as Trichoderma viride, whereas the effective pseudomonad isolate P1 was identified as Pseudomonas fluorescens.

The experiment was conducted at the experimental unit of the Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, Indore (M.P.). Experiment was conducted under naturally ventilated polyhouse. Uniformly developed budded plants of Dutch roses were planted in double row system at spacing of 40 x 40 cm from row to row and plant to plant, respectively, thereby adjusting 12 plants per 2.4 m2 plot. The experiment was laid out in a Factorial Completely Randomized Design (CRD Factorial) with three soil based substrates like; soil + FYM + sand (G1), soil + FYM + cocopeat (G2) and soil + FYM + sawdust (G3) mixed in 2:1:1 (v/v) and three fertilizers treatments viz., water soluble fertilizers (F1), commercial straight fertilizers (F2) and Biofertilizers + water soluble fertilizers (F3), thereby making a total of nine treatment combinations which were replicated thrice. Results revealed that plants grown in a medium containing soil + FYM + sawdust and fertilized with water soluble fertilizers (G3F1) resulted in maximum plant height (75.28 cm), Earlier flower bud initiation (124.70 days), Leaf area (35.45 cm2), Size of flower (9.09 cm), No. of flowers per plant (15.9) and Flower yield of 2,61,800 flower stems per hectare.