biological control of alternaria rot of tomato bytwo bacterial strains, pseudomonas fluorescens utpf68, and bacillus subtilis utb96

poor packaging and improper management causes fruits get bruised and squeezed, allowingfor different types of rots to develop when the necessary favorable growth conditions available.tomato fruit is beset with problems of both field and storage rot. throughout the presentstudy, two biocontrol bacteria pseudomonas fluorescens utpf68, and bacillus subtilis utb96the large scale production of which had been successfully carried out in industrial bioreactorwere tested against some isolated tomato post harvest pathogens, in eitherin vitroor in vivoconditions. alphadual culture results indicated that b. subtilis utb96 inhibited mycelialgrowth of alternaria alternata and of penicillium spp. for about 68.7 and 81.7 percentrespectively. also, p. fluorescens utpf68 was shown to prevent the mycelial growth of a.alternata and of penicillium spp. by about 62.2 and 24.3 percent respectively. a substantialpotential of the bacterial strains, in preventing the growth of fungus a. alternata on tomatofruit was finally observed. the bacterium b. subtilis utb96 reduced rot development oftomato fruits caused by a. alternate for about 92.5 percent. meanwhile, bacterium p.fluorescens utpf68 inhibited the mycelial growth of the postharvest pathogen a. alternata ontomato fruits by about 76.5 percent. the results of this study plus future complementaryresearches can help the development and application of large scale biological control intendedto reduce the post harvest incidence of diseases.